
Class F"?4 
I c. 



PRESENTED BY 



WITH THE COMPLIMENTS 

Dover Historical and Natural History Society 



OLD HOME DAY 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the 
Incorporation of the Town of 

DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

Wednesday, July 7th, 1909 



It is good for us to commemorate this homespun past of ours : 
good, in these days of a swaggering and reckless prosperity, to remind 
ourselves how poor our fathers were, and that we celebrate them 
because for themselves and their children they chose wisdom and 
understanding and the things that are of God. 

James %ussell Lowell. 



Printed by the 
DOVER HISTORICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 

191 



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CONTENTS 



Foreword 6 

Invitation 7 

Official Programme 8 

Committees 9 

The Celebration 10 

The Sports 10 

Literary Exercises in the Meeting House 11 

Invocation — By Rev. William R. Lord 11 

Words of Welcome — By Frank Smith, Esq 12 

Original Hymn — By Rev. George H. Badger 13 

Historical Address — By Frederic J. Stimson, Esq 14 

Original Poem — By Miss Mabel Colcord 24 

America 25 

Literary Exercises in the Town Hall 26 

Reading of Letters from His Excellency Governor Eben S. 

Draper — By Augustin H. Parker, Esq 26 

Greeting to Dover's oldest citizen — Asa Talbot, Esq 27 

Address — By Hon. Charles Q. Tirrell 27 

Address— By Dr. William T.~Porter 31 

Address — By B. Edwin Guy, Esq 34 

Address — By Richard W. Hale, Esq 35 

An Original Poem 37 

Address — Dover Beautiful — By George D. Hall, Esq 39 

Address — By Hubbard C. Packard, Esq 40 

Sunday at the First Parish Church 44 

Sunday at the Dover Temperance Union 54 



FOREWORD 



The inception of the plan for celebrating the one hundred and 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the incorporation of the town had 
its origin in the Dover Historical Society. The directors were 
instructed by vote of the society to canvass the subject and ascer- 
tain if there was a sentiment in favor of the observance of the 
day. The proposition met with a hearty response, and the town 
unanimously voted at the April town meeting, under Art. 67 in 
the town warrant, to observe the occasion under the auspices 
of "Old Home Day." 

An appropriation of three hundred dollars was made to meet 
the necessary expenses. A joint committee of the town and the 
Dover Historical Society arranged for the celebration and 
carried out an interesting programme, the entire expense of 
which was kept within the appropriation. 

A more perfect summer day for the celebration could not have 
been desired, fair skies and gentle breezes prevailed. It was 
estimated that at least a thousand persons were in attendance 
during the day. All public buildings and private residences in 
the center of the town were tastefully adorned. The interior 
of the meeting house was beautifully decorated with crimson 
ramblers and horse brier, while the town hall was dressed in our 
national colors. An arch was erected over the central path lead- 
ing across the Common, which bore a "Welcome" for all. 
Derby's Natick Band discoursed appropriate music throughout 
the day, from a band stand, which had been erected on the 
Common. 

Able committees on invitations, reception, literary and musical 
exercises, decorations, badges, refreshments, sports and finance, 
attended to every detail of the celebration. 

The committee on invitations issued the following invitation, 
which was sent to over eight hundred persons scattered over the 
country, from Maine to California. 




17 8 4 IlfEHRSUI 19 9 



Celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the Incorporation 

of Dover. 

Wednesday, July 7, 1909. 



We cordially invite you to join us in our Anniversary Cele- 
bration. 

Let us gather together on that day and renew old acquaint- 
ances, and form new ones that shall strengthen the ties that bind 
us to our beautiful town. 

The following programme, suitable to the occasion has been 
prepared for your entertainment, and we trust that after the 
day is over all will feel that the time has been well spent, and 
long to be remembered. 

Anticipating a large attendance, the committee has decided to 
make it a basket lunch. 

Hot coffee and lemonade will be furnished free to all from 12 
m. to 1 p. m. 

A suitable place will be provided near the Town Hall where 
all who so desire may obtain a lunch at reasonable rates. 

The committee would request all who receive this invitation to 
cordially invite any former resident who may have been omitted, 
to be present. 

A band will be in attendance throughout the day. 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

LITERARY EXERCISES 

President of the Day, Frank Smith, Esq. 

FIRST PARISH MEETING HOUSE, at 11:00 a. m. 

1. Organ Voluntary — Mrs. J. H. Faulk. 

2. Invocation — Rev. William R. Lord. 

3. Words of Welcome — By President of the Day. 

4. Original Hymn — Rev. George H. Badger. 

5. Historical Address — Frederic J. Stimson, Esq. 

6. Original Poem — Miss Mabel Colcord. 

7. National Hymn, "America" — By the audience. 

TOWN HALL, at 2 :00 p. m. 

1. Violin Solo — Mrs. Harold Shaw. 

2. Reading of Letter from His Excellency Governor Eben 

S. Draper — Augustin H. Parker, Esq. 

3. Greeting to Deacon Asa Talbot. 

4. Address — Hon. Charles Q. Tirrell. 

5. Address— Dr. William T. Porter. 

6. Vocal Solo — Mr. James Tisdale. 

7. Address — B. Edwin Guy, Esq. 

8. Address — Richard W. Hale, Esq. 

9. Original Poem. 

10. Address — Dover Beautiful, George D. Hall, Esq. 

11. Address — Hubbard C. Packard, Esq. 

12. Vocal Solo — Mr. James Tisdale. 

The ushers are descendants of the following early residents, 
as indicated: 

MEETING HOUSE. 

Miss Alma Chickering — Nathaniel Chickering, Eleazer Ellis. 
Miss Martha A. Colburn — Hezekiah Allen, James Mann. 
Miss Esther Bond — Henry Wilson, James Draper. 
Miss Irene Bacon — John Bacon, Andrew Dewing, Nathaniel 
Whiting. 

TOWN HALL. 

Allen F. Smith — Ebenezer Smith, Thomas Richards, John 
Williams. 

Judson Battelle — Thomas Battelle, Ebenezer Newell, John 
Mason. 

Charles Thompson — Seth Wight. 

William T. Tisdale — Henry Tisdale, Samuel Fisher. 

8 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

The Sawin Memorial Building, the home of the Dover His- 
torical Society, was open from 10 to 11 a. m., 1 to 2 p. m., and 
was visited by a large number of people. 

JOINT COMMITTEES. 

Of the Town — Eben Higgins, Chairman ; James H. dicker- 
ing, Allen F. Smith. 

Of the Historical Society — Augustin H. Parker, Secre- 
tary; Charles S. Bean, Edward W. Grew, Mrs. B. T. Wheeler, 
Mrs. Allen F. Smith, Mrs. Sarah A. Higgins, Mrs. William T. 
Porter, Mrs. J. L. Woodward, President Frank Smith, ex-ofUcio ; 
Vice President Richard H. Bond, ex-ottcio. 

The joint committee appointed the following committees : 

Honorary Committee — Mrs. E. Colburn, Mrs. S. E. Wight, 
Mrs. Josie Bean, Mrs. C. M. Tisdale, Mrs. Bertha Whiting, Mrs. 
M. W. Smith, Mr. Asa Talbot, Mr. G. E. Chickering, Mr. A. F. 
Dodge, Mr. Elbridge L. Mann, Mr. A. K. Tisdale, Mr. John C. 
Coombs, Mr. William Conrick, Mr. I. Colburn, Capt. Warren 
Wotton. 

Invitation Committee — Mr. A. F. Smith, Chairman; Mrs. 
M. A. P. Everett, Mrs. A. F. Smith, Miss Caroline Newell, Mr. 
Frank Smith, Mr. Geo. E. Chickering, Mr. George McKenzie. 

Committee on Sports — Mr. James Chickering, Chairman; 
Mr. Frank A. Bean, Mr. Wayland Minot, Mr. Donald B. 
Wheeler, Mr. William McClure, Mr. G. D. Hall, Mr. J. V. 
Schaffner, Jr., Mr. Edward Sawyer. 

Financial Committee — Mr. E. W. Grew, Chairman; Mr. 
Eben Higgins, Mr. J. G. Forbes, Mr. B. T. Wheeler. 

Literary and Musical Committee — Mr. Frank Smith, 
Chairman ; Mrs. Eben Higgins, Mrs. L. A. Chickering, Mrs. B. 
T. Wheeler, Mrs. R. K. Rogers, Miss Dorothy Damrell, Miss 
Lydia Higgins, Mr. R. W. Hale, Mr. H. C. Vrooman, Mr. 
Winthrop Harvey. 

Committee on Decorations — Mrs. J. L. Woodward, Chair- 
man ; Miss Una Bean, Mr. J. H. Faulk, Mr. G. C. Taylor, Mr. 
Frank Bean, Mr. A. F. Smith. 

Committee on Badges — Mrs. B. T. Wheeler, Chairman; Mr. 
A. F. Smith, Mr. George H. Burgess. 

Committee on Refreshments — Mr. C. S. Bean, Chairman; 
Mrs. Evora M. Wotton, Mr. Winfred W. Battelle, Mrs. H. C. 
Packard, Mr. J. Ziolkowski, Miss Annie Ziolkowski. 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Reception Committee — Mrs. Eben Higgins, Chairman; Mrs. 
J. H. Faulk, Mrs. Caroline Hodgson, Mrs. A. H. Parker, Mrs. 
Allen Smith, Mrs. E. W. Grew, Mrs. Charles Lord, Mrs. John 
McClure, Mrs. Anna Battelle, Miss Martha E. Colburn, Mr 
Robert S. Minot, Mr. George C. Taylor, Mr. B. H. Dorr, Mr. 
F. A. Parmenter, Mr. Charles S. Damrell, Mr. P. B. Howard, 
Mr. M. W. Comiskey, Mr. James McGill, Mr. C. W. Plympton, 
Mr. C. W. Sawyer, Mr. James Hopkins. 

THE PUBLIC OBSERVANCE. 

The public observance of the day commenced at 7 a. m., with 
the ringing of the Meeting House bell, which in the years that 
have long passed has been rung on so many and varied occa- 
sions. 

In the years that have gone it has solemnly announced the 
death of many a patriarch of the town. For seventy years it 
has sent forth its invitation to the inhabitants to come and wor- 
ship the Most High. And for the same period of time its iron 
tongue has joyously announced on the fourth of each July the 
anniversary of the birthday of the nation. The old bell has thus 
appealed for nearly three quarters of a century to the higher 
nature of man, and has long announced the joys and sorrows 
of the community. 

SPORTS. 

The athletic events commenced at 9 o'clock in the morning and 
were confined to the residents of the town. The events and the 
prize winners were as follows : 

100-yard Dash. — 1st, Daniel Comiskey; '2nd, F. A. Bean; 
3rd, Donald Wheeler. 

220-yard Dash. — 1st, Daniel Comiskey; 2nd, Donald Wheeler; 
3rd, F. A. Bean. 

80-yard Dash for Boys. — 1st, Arlan Wotton ; 2nd, Edward 
Comiskey; 3rd, J. W. Woodward. 

One Mile Run. — 1st, J. W. Woodward; 2nd, Clifford Nelson. 

Potato Race for Boys. — 1st Edward Comiskey; 2nd, Leon 
Bean ; 3rd, Daniel Comiskey. 

Three Legged Race for Boys. — 1st, J. L. Woodward and 
Daniel Comiskey. 

High Jump. — 1st, Donald Wheeler; 2nd, F. A. Bean; 3rd, 
Charles Paine. 

Broad Jump. — 1st, F. Lally; 2nd, F. A. Bean; 3rd, Lester 
Fravel. 

Shot Put. — 1st, F. A. Bean; 2nd, Charles Durocher. 

10 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

Potato Race for Girls. — 1st, Dorothy Faulk; 2nd, Geraldine 
Wheeler; 3rd, Evelyn Bean. 

Egg and Spoon Race for Girls. — 1st, Dorothy Faulk; 2nd, 
Evelyn Bean ; 3rd, Elizabeth Woodward. 

BASE BALL GAME, 4:00 P. M. 

A game of base ball took place between the Pokanoket Club 
and selected players among the boys of the town. One of the 
players on the club team was Filley, the Harvard oarsman. The 
club team won. 

THE SCORE. 

Innings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 

Pokanoket 3 10 3 5 4 3 2 3—24 

Dover boys 2 0200000 2—6 

LITERARY EXERCISES. 
First Parish Meeting-House, 11 a. m. 
The exercises commenced with an organ voluntary by Mrs. 
John H. Faulk. 

The President: The blessing of our fathers' God will be 
invoked on the exercises and festivities of this day by the Rev. 
William Rogers Lord. 

Invocation. 

In the midst of these happy greetings and sacred memories, 
we would bow down before Thee, O God, at this shrine of the 
fathers ! Reverent thought of Thee ever becomes us ! How 
much now, as we remember Thee as the God of our common 
humanity, Thee, before whom and in whom the generations 
pass on and out and up ! 

Thou wast and art and evermore shalt be, and thus in Thee 
is the assurance that all things work together for good ; that our 
human lives have part in the eternal process moving on toward 
high ends and glorious fulfilments. 

We thank Thee for the succession of generations who have 
struggled on and up to greater and ever greater achievements, 
conquering in our humanity the beast and developing the man. 

For those hero-men and women who, on these hills, demon- 
strated the divinity of themselves, and thus of us who are their 
children, we thank Thee. 

We thank Thee for the faith, the hope and love in these our 
forbears, which caused them to endure hardships, and even 
to make light of the afflictions of their day and their conditions ! 

How great is our inheritance from those who toiled and tra- 
vailed for us who were yet unborn ! 

11 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Contemplating today what manner of lives they lived, we 
would not be altogether unworthy of them, unworthy of our- 
selves, or of Thee whose sons we are, O God ! 

We thank Thee for the fair face of this our common home, — 
for hill and vale, river and lake, for the more ancient trees and 
for the youthful woods! 

We thank Thee for the ties that bind us to the people and 
the associations of the past, and now here to one another! 

We thank Thee for the present and its gifts of things abun- 
dant, physical, intellectual, social and spiritual ! For this oppor- 
tunity today, to touch hearts in honoring our great and common 
dead! 

We thank Thee, too, for the future ! That it makes to us all 
such glorious appeals to fill it with blessing through our brave 
endeavors and wise direction, — that our children and our chil- 
dren's children may count us worthy also to be remembered i 

Before Thee then, in the one fellowship of the dead, of the 
living, and of those who are to live, — here, within this home 
town, in this temple, the shrine of the fathers, the shrine of their 
children who are here and who will be here, we acknowledge 
Thee to be the Only Wise God, our Father, to Whom be 
honor and glory for evermore ! Amen. 

WORDS OF WELCOME. 
By Frank Smith, Esq., President of the Day. 
Fellow Citizens and Friends: — 

We can well imagine that there was great rejoicing in Dover 
a hundred and twenty-five years ago to-day. For more than 
half a century the people here had been contending for indepen- 
dence — a characteristic of this people — first, in being freed from 
the minister rate at Dedham ; second, in their endeavor to gain 
parish privileges, and third, in their determined effort to win 
an incorporate existence. July 7, 1784, witnessed the consumma- 
tion of their desires. So it is well for us on this anniversary 
to make a holiday, to pause long enough to consider the lives 
of the founders of this town. George Eliot once said : "No great 
people ever lived without processions, great festivals, and high 
holidays." We do not have holidays enough in this busy money- 
getting age of ours. In the olden time it was a custom to lead 
out the youth of royal families to gaze on the monuments of 
their ancestors and be there inspired to emulate their heroism. 
We are all the product of the past and whatever we are we owe 
our existence and all that we enjoy to other human beings. 

12 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

Others have labored and we have entered into their labors. We 
take from the generation that has passed and we give to the 
generation that is to come. 

It was the courage, the sacrifice, the heroism of our fathers 
that made it possible for us to enjoy so much in the present, and 
as their lives are held in review we ought to gain that inspira- 
tion which shall make us more faithful in the discharge of civic 
duties, more loyal to the institutions which they founded. And 
so, my friends, I welcome you to this country town; I welcome 
you to this country life which you so well remember ; I welcome 
you to these roof-trees and to these homesteads into which have 
soaked in several instances the traditions of ten generations. I 
welcome you to these wooded hills, these fertile plains, these 
country roads, these blooming flowers, these winding brooks, on 
whose banks you may have heard in the silence the very voice 
of God speaking to your souls. I welcome you to this ancient 
church with all its tender memories and associations. It matters 
not what your church affiliations may be to-day ; for nearly a 
century your ancestors worshipped on this hill. I welcome you 
to all the institutions of the town, made sacred by human per- 
sonalities and events which have consecrated them ; finally I wel- 
come you to the exercises of this day which have been arranged 
for your pleasure and instructi6n. 

The President: You are all invited to sing to the tune of 
Hamburg the original hymn written by the Rev. George H. 
Badger, a former minister of this town : — 

ORIGINAL HYMN. 

O God, to whom in former days 
Our fathers looked, and not in vain, 
For guidance in adventurous ways, 
That greatening grace their quest attain : 

With reverent joy we count their deeds; 
They builded true, as to thy name ; 
O'er modest measure of their needs 
Was raised faith's consecrating flame, — 

In these fair days of greater gifts, 
Horizoned with a broader view 
Where newer custom vainly lifts 
A dream of manhood rashly new, 

May we, the children of such sires, 
Keep virtue staunch and pure as theirs : 
As proudly guard faith's altar-fires, 
And forge achievement for their prayers. 

13 



12STH ANNIVERSARY 

Fair as the grace of field and dale 
That spread our sunlit valleys thro' 
May old-time honor still prevail 
Crowned with a faith divinely new. 

The President : Dover was highly honored a few years since 
by one of our prominent writers in having the scene of an inter- 
esting story, — King Noanett, — largely laid within her borders. 
The author of this story having been born and reared in the 
neighboring town of Dedham, is almost to the manner born, and 
so we have asked him to speak to us to-day, on this our anni- 
versary, because he can not only give us the salient facts in our 
own history, but bring to us the greetings of the mother town as 
well. I have the pleasure of introducing as the orator of the 
occasion, Frederic J. Stimson, Esq., of Dedham. 

ADDRESS: FREDERIC JESUP STIMSON, ESQ. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

It gives me exceeding pleasure to bring to you the greetings 
of the town of Dedham. 

I presume it must have been your knowledge of my fondness 
for the old Springfield Parish of Dedham that has caused you 
to honor me in this way. From early boyhood, I was in the 
habit of roaming through its woods, climbing its hills and wading 
its brooks. I walked and rode through the Noanet Valley before 
I knew its name, and puzzled over the Cyclopean walls of its 
dams and mill races, which seemed already of an age im- 
memorial. I explored the cellars of the Indian orchard before 
I knew that they were really Indian cellars. I rode to the top 
of Pine Rock Hill and enjoyed its wonderful view before I knew 
its name. Indeed, we called it "The Brunhilde-Stein" from its 
resemblance to the usual staging of the last act in Wagner's 
opera of "Siegfried." I put my canoe into the waters of Mill 
Brook and paddled to the Neponset River. I thought then, as 
I think now, that this little town presents the most charming 
combination of typical New England scenery, wild and tame, 
rocky fell and meadow valley, to be found in Massachusetts. 
If love for a place qualifies one to speak for it, I am qualified; 
otherwise, I fear not. 

For, in the first place, your town has been favored with the 
work of one of those local historians that are an honor to New 
England and a wonder to the outside world. What he has left 
of a second crop, or, rather, of a third crop — for I think he has 
preceded me at least twice in this office — will make very poor 

14 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

rowans indeed, and I must say now that I fear the only perma- 
nent value of my words to-day to the people of the town of 
Dover will be the bibliography* which I have been at some pains 
to prepare. I have exhausted the resources of four great his- 
torical libraries, Harvard College, Boston Athenaeum, Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society and the Dedham Historical Society. 

I will spare you the catalogue now, but I shall leave it with 
you in an appendix. 

As you all know, Springfield became a parish in 1748, and the 
District of Dover in 1784. The independence of the Colonies 
seems to have prompted your independence from the mother 
town. Dover, therefore, was always a free town. It never was 
subject to King George III. and very possibly it is one of the 
very first, — certainly of Massachusetts towns, — that was created 
under the American Republic.** 

Naturally, the annals of Dover prior to 1784 must be sought 
in the wonderful records of Dedham, for your mother town, as 
you know, almost alone among American municipalities, has 
preserved and even published its complete town records from the 
year of its settlement, 1637 ; and the labors of that other great 
antiquarian who is our Town Clerk have furnished an inex- 
haustible mine for all time for the student of New England 
sociology and institutions. I have consulted these records, but 
while there is here and there a reference to Springfield by that 
name, most of the entries are indistinguishably mixed with the 
annals of Dedham as a whole, and could only be picked out by 
one familiar for more than a century with the names of the 
residents of Springfield. It seems established that on Straw- 
berry Hill was your first settlement, and that Henry Wilson of 
Kent, England, had there his first child born in 1644, and that 
on the morning of the first night in his new house he was 
awakened by a wildcat looking in through the window. This 
wildcat may, therefore, be said to begin the history of Spring- 
field. 

The next documents to which I would call your attention are 
the famous diaries of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the father of Fisher 
Ames, which have been in great part printed by the Dedham 
Historical Society. I have had access to the originals, and here, 
if anywhere, may I hope to find a line that has escaped the 
attention of the redoubtable Frank Smith. His diaries begin in 
1762 and last until 1821, with some breaks. They begin, ap- 

*See appendix. 

**Longmeadow, incorporated Oct. 13, 1783, was the first town in 
Massachusetts to be created under the American Republic. 

15 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

parently, while he was at Harvard College, and contain single 
line entries, many of great interest, though the vast bulk of 
them is concerned, as in most diaries, with the state of the 
weather. Fortunately, however, he does not, as do the earlier 
diarists of New England, tell us only of the state of his soul. 
Nothing is more discouraging to the New England historian 
than this habit ; where he would give worlds for a paragraph 
on the appearance of the country, on the flora and fauna, on 
what they really saw and did, and on the habits of the Indians, 
he finds only interminable analyses of the writer's spiritual con- 
dition, which might equally well have been written without ever 
stirring from old England. Dr. Ames has not this fault, but he 
does tell you too much about the weather, about his mistreat- 
ment by his housekeepers and domestics, and, as is natural and 
proper for a doctor, he enters the birth of every child he brings 
into the world. The weather, however, is not without interest, 
and we may gather that the climate was much the same as now. 
He complains of cold spells in May, and even frosts ; of hot 
spells in December and mild weather in January, of repeated 
drouths in August, and also of rains or floods in March, in May, 
or even later. He cuts his meadow hay at dates varying between 
the last week in July and the third week in August, but in one 
year he mentions that he went over the meadows in boats, on 
account of the heavy floods. The first reference he makes to 
Springfield is on June 20, 1762: "Went Springfield Meet with 
Debby. Caryl preached; a girl taken with an hysterick fitt in 
Meeting." The same year, September 8, he enters : "Reduction 
of the Havannah. Admiral Saunders' victory. Also that our 
Queen was safely delivered of twins." What a flood of good 
news is here ! Note the fervent loyalty of a Dedham resident, 
who afterwards became a great patriot and, as we should call 
it, Democrat, only one or two years before the Boston Massacre 
and the Stamp Act, and thirteen years before King George made 
proclamation that all the inhabitants of his thirteen colonies 
were "rebels" and so drove them away. 

The amusements in those days were, in some respects, much 
like ours, but they still had a great horror of the theatre or of 
play acting. About this time Dr. Ames says that they gave a 
play at Cambridge and fear they may be indicted for so doing. 
The first professional dramatic company seems to have come 
to Newport, R. I., and then to Providence, and there are several 
entries of Dr. Ames and other inhabitants of Dedham going to 
Newport or to Providence to see them. On September 11th: 

16 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

"Seth and I agree to spend eve with same La. . . A very pretty 
and genteel ball for Dedham. The Co. consisted of Leonard, 
Fisher, Scollay, Hunt, Sherburn, Andrew Oliver, Balch, Seth 
and I. Ladies, imprimis and before all the adorable D F . . . r, 
(this lady, after all, did not become his bride, though, oddly 
enough, when some years later, he gets married, he notes the 
incident but does not tell us the lady's name) next D. Balch, 
Eliz Day, Miss Hilly Newfoundland & mea soror. Held at Mrs. 
Steward's to whom we very impolitely gave no warning of our 
coming, but were received very graciously." It appears from 
this entry that the so-called Surprise Party, which even Dr. 
Ames thinks something of a vulgarian atrocity, prevailed at that 
early day, and I wish I could here tell the story of the surprise 
party of the White Lady carved in wood, on Pegan Hill. 

I have said that their amusements were quite modern. It is 
true, they eschewed theatres ; they did not have any. They 
drank a great deal more than we do, but, on the other hand, they 
went to church a great deal more. They were not given to 
athletic games, although Ames speaks once of playing bat and 
ball in College. But on September 12, the day after the ball, 
he says : "We all . . . spent the chief of the Day in playing 
Bragg, very unlucky . . ." He kept school in Dedham that 
winter. He makes other entries such as this : "April 13. Spent 
most of the night playing Bragg, a very enticing game." Thus, 
the antiquity of poker is established. On the 14th he was ". . . 
rebuked for acting a Play by our Parents." 

On December 13th : "I began the Town Schoole," and June 
15th: "Went Springfield." He does not tell us why he went to 
Springfield, but on August 11th of that year he enters "Actors 
at Providence," and on the 23rd : "Went Providence, saw 
Douglas acted." Anybody who has witnessed, or even read 
that dreary play known as Home's "Douglas" will feel that this 
was no frivolous dissipation. The next day he saw "The Dis- 
tressed Mother," and on the 25th returned home. He notes that 
he rode from Newport to Dedham in one day, which strikes me 
as "going some." On November 10th he went to Caryl's ordi- 
nation. Now, that is your old and famous parson Caryl whose 
sermons you still preserve. 

February 20th, 1764, I find this most interesting historical 
note, which, though it does not directly concern Dover, I cannot 
forbear to quote it : "The Corcass Club is a set of men in Boston 
of the most influential who determine every year a little before 
March Meeting what men they will have for such and such an 

17 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

office & have not been known to fail for above 50 years past." 
This is the historical origin of the caucus, which we invented 
and gave back to England. 

In April and May of that year was "a long uncomfortable 
Season of East Winds & cloudy weather," and on May 31 a 
"Great Frost." I should say that it was considerably like the 
year we are now celebrating. On August 9th is the first ominous 
political entry : "Alarming duties & taxes laid on America . . ." 
Next year the stamp tax was repealed, and on July 2 Dr. Ames 
"Went Boston bispoke Pitt's Head for Pillar of Liberty." The 
stone-masons must have been prompter in those days of no labor 
unions, for July 22, twenty days later, we find the note: "Pitt's 
Head erected — vast concourse of people." 

The next entry relating to Springfield is a sporting one. Oct. 
16, 1767: "M. Brimmer, Fisher & I hunted squirrels from High 
Rock over to Springfield and so down the River." Dec. 16th: 
"4 Ladies came here from Boston in a booby Hutch," which is 
interesting as showing the antiquity of that expression also. 
The "booby Hutch" we now call a "sea-going hack." 

In 1771 "Paul Riviere made me a nose syringe for two pis- 
tareen." Finally, on June 14, 1774, we have the entry: "Con- 
nubio junctus Reverendo, Dr. William Clarke," — "joined in 
wedlock by the Reverend Dr. William Clarke" — but he conceals 
the name of the bride. Their wedding journey lasted one day. 
It is thus entered: June 15: "Went Watertown." 

You will remember that at the battle of Lexington a Dover 
man was killed ; Dr. Ames went and dressed the wounded, and 
on June 17th, 1775, he notes "Terrible Battle," and March 1, 

1776, "Continued roar of Cannon Night & Day." April 18: 
"Boston opened yesterday." He rides in and finds the town 
gloomy and the shops all closed. On March 5th, he makes the 
entry: "Gen. Washington lodged in town," and on July 4th, 

1777, the very first year, he notes "Anniversary of Independence 
celebrated." Thus, our ancestors had full consciousness of what 
they were doing, and already, in 1777, while every other colony 
but Massachusetts still bore the tread of what our ancestors 
called the "Regulars" we were here already sure that our liberty 
was an accomplished fact. 

The liberty of Dover from Dedham, July 7, 1784, was cele- 
brated by the good Doctor in this manner, the last entry in his 
diary I shall quote: "July 7, 1784. Planted potatoes." There is 
no other reference to Dover, — or Derby, as it was first to have 
been called. 

18 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

John Jones' Book of Minutes covers part of the same period, 
but does not present the wealth of material that we find in the 
Ames diary. It is noteworthy that both he and the early ministers 
speak so often of earthquakes, which must, surely, have been a 
far more common occurrence in the Eighteenth Century than 
to-day. We have a sermon preached by Stephen Palmer on 
"The Glory of the Second Temple" at the dedication of the new 
meeting-house in Dover in 1811. We have also Dr. Sanger's 
two sermons, one in 1842, noting the deaths and the marriages, 
the church members, and the population, wealth, education and 
agricultural of Dover for thirty years. As to temperance, he 
quaintly remarks : "Earliest society did not conceive the idea of 
total abstinence," and, indeed, the first temperance society in 
the world is said to have been founded in Boston in 1813. Gov- 
ernor Strong of Massachusetts, and President Kirkland of Har- 
vard College were leading members, and it is noted that a 
reasonable amount of wines and spirits, notably Madeira and 
rum, was served at all their meetings. Then we have a sermon 
in 1853, covering a brief review of his ministry of the past forty 
years, and again largely, as was natural, made up of the births 
and deaths occurring in that period, and yet they have much to 
say about the climate, of earthquakes again, and of the condi- 
tion of the country generally. Pathetic, in this later sermon, is 
his enthusiastic view of the progress of the peace movement. 
With warm enthusiasm he traces the growth of societies for uni- 
versal peace, and predicts that now there shall be no more war 
or going to war. And this sermon was preached by Parson 
Sanger in 1853, just eight years before the most dreadful war of 
modern times ! The surviving sermons of Parson Caryl are, 
alas ! entirely doctrinal. 

According to the charming book of Alice Jones, "Dover on 
the Charles," the Dover people were frugal and simple in their 
attire, which, alas, was not true of the parent town of Dedham, 
whose inhabitants, according to Dr. Haven's Memorial address 
about that time, "attracted the attention of the General Court 
and became amenable to the laws for excess of luxury in their 
apparel." Col. Jones, indeed, wore a scarlet coat of great splen- 
dor, according to Mrs. Stowe in our "Oldtown Folks," but she 
also tells us that he became something of a Tory and had to lie 
low during the Revolution. 

Six years after the parish was created in 1754, your first 
meeting-house was built, afterwards destroyed by fire, and at 
that time or later the wolves still killed the sheep on Pegan 

19 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Hill ; deer, otter and bear were common in the woods, beaver 
dams in the brooks and salmon and alewives in the river. In- 
deed, down on the Charles, near where the brook goes in, the 
Indian "Noanet" built his weirs. His name must have been 
well known to the early settlers, because, besides the place called 
"Noanet Weirs" and "Noanet Brook," mills were established 
there in 1733, later called Noanet, and Noanet Hall was built 
half a century later. When I took the name for the romance 
in which I hoped to embody some of the tradition of the upper 
Charles, it was to me a mere name on the map; but it is odd 
that in the purely imaginary identification of the old Indian 
chief with the loyalist, Penruddocke, who conducted a rising 
against the Commonwealth in Devonshire about 1658 or 1660, 
I was making a more likely story than I knew ; for it is well 
known that a lady of your town devoted some years to the ser- 
vice of Whalley and Goffe, the regicides. And I may say here, 
as some of you have asked me the question, that with the excep- 
tion of the imagination of Noanet as a refugee in disguise, car- 
rying his daughter, the heroine, with him, only disguised as an 
Indian, and the fanciful notion that the successive dams and 
flumes on Noanet Brook might serve as a defense against an 
explorer or an attacking party, all the geography or minor his- 
tory, and every incident of scenery or weather (what we now 
call "local color") is, in that book, taken from contemporary 
documents, even to a long passage quoted from an English 
High Church clergyman in Devonshire, and printed in a well- 
known ancient book, and which resulted in the somewhat 
ludicrous incident that the London Saturday Review picked out 
this authentic piece of old English as a passage which "could 
never have been written at the time or since !" 

The brooks, I fear, had far more water in them then than now, 
or, at least a more steady supply. Noanet Brook would have been 
quite navigable for canoes, and, indeed, a hundred years later 
the "New Mill Company" was chartered to run an iron or slit- 
ting-mill on the brook where the fall now is, and was only 
abandoned after twelve years for want of adequate water sup- 
ply. We most of us can well remember the huge old wooden 
wheel rotting away in the waterway and making, with its water- 
fall, the most charming scene in Dover, — with the possible 
exception of the Dingle Hole, the gateway of the Charles, now 
taken for a State Reservation, and both of which I chose as 
pictures for the book. This old mill had one of the first "over- 
shot" wheels in the country, but was a failure as the water 

20 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 
supply of Noanet brook decreased. It had buckets four w 

S Tame 3 Zt™*** ** ™ ^^^JZX 
drawing ^\ er - ma , ny t,mes that summer, and every 
Rawing, I think, even in the second edition, where there are a 

pages or books and sermons and diaries that one has tn dn t rt 
discover one solid fact, one concrete observation o anvthC 
but a dry abstraction-such, for instance, as that the trees ^n 

Indians, whereby only the great trees survived S Y 

Ph^V?w e ' y0l J kn °u that Dover had m « ch to do with King 

b^r^-^dat'bvt nei ^ hb T °rf to 7 n ° f MedfieId w"f 
uuraea mis date, by the way, I had to a ter for a few vears in 

ttle^fT' ,°; my hCroine W0UM have been nigh f^rty when 

the hero found her again-and you know of the taking of a 

econd Indian Chief, Pomham, in Dedham Woods There is 

as you know, a Pomham Point upon the Providence River o 

Le h L^ten to" ^^^ ff^ ™ St have be - wide 
Let us hasten to more peaceful scenes, for the charm of 

Dover is its peaceful beauty and its gentle seclusion -noTtha! 
a /ew vear°< TT " been . rud ^ b ^en. I remember only 
a tew >e ars ago, being appointed on the staff of General Mat- 

terr an n a tt C a °K UCtmg ' M a J" 1 * m the annuaI mfllSa ^maneu- 
vers an attacking army up the northwest slopes of Pegan HiU 
There a very smoky battle-we had no smokeless powdef n 
hose days-took place, between three batteries of artfflerv and 

Sacrsetts U or nd aM T\ * "^ ShaH *>*« how ^SiSh 
iviassachusetts, or, at least, two negro companies thereof £rot so 

excited that when the defending companies, shooting 8 ?^ 

behind your stone walls, delayed'their retrea these ne^SS 

"me diffin It" Witl \ d , ubbed «"». and a real battl was *with 
some difficuky aver ed. And after the cruel war was over 
and Pegan Hill safely captured. Col. Shumway went with his' 
regiment to the ady who owned the farm and asked I if h ; sol 
diers might drink of her well. A permission, after some delay, 

21 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

was granted, though she complained that twenty years ago she 
had chosen to buy that high farm for peace and quiet, and did 
not expect to have to feed four thousand fighting soldiers, with 
one battery of artillery on the hill in front and eight more can- 
non firing from the back yard. 

Certainly Pegan Hill is one of the most beautiful hills of 
eastern Massachusetts of the English green-topped variety, as 
Noanet's country is the most romantic of rough rock and forest. 
One of the most famous American paintings, by the man most of 
us think our greatest landscape artist, Inness, is of the view of 
the Charles River Valley near Sherborn, taken from a place in 
Dover near Farm street. We cannot claim, as Medfield does, 
the northernmost habitat of the beautiful rhododendron, but we 
share in the beauty of the Narrows, and we own alone those 
wonderful sweet springs which gave our town its early name. 

Fortunately, we are all convinced now of the value of mere 
beauty. We should all read Ruskin's famous definition of value, 
a word derived from ancient words which mean that which gives 
life or health. Do not confuse this noble word with " price," or 
money-value: in exchange. 

Dover has never been a manufacturing town. It is, in many 
respects, now, hardly agricultural. Its future is residential, that 
is to say, a place where one goes to live. Mr. Smith tells me that 
before railroads came, only two persons in Dover earned their 
living outside the town, and yet there has hardly ever been a 
mechanical industry. When, some years ago, in a neighboring 
town, I heard a citizen say to another that what we needed was 
a few " good, nice manufactories," I thought the observation 
short-sighted. There are some places in this world to be left for 
beauty, to be left to live in, not to work in or earn money in. I 
am not one of those who hold it a necessary advantage for a 
town, however it may be for the statistics-returns of the nation 
as a whole, to have vast numbers of operatives, herded in huge 
buildings, to make what Mill would call " Utilities fixed and 
embodied in material objects." I hold commerce, for the people, 
to be more broadening, more elevating, more educating and more 
health-giving, a vocation than manufacturing, aye, and agricul- 
ture, too ; while above all three is the art of highest living. The 
" value " of Dover is to give good life. Our ancestors, by their 
customs, were familiar with many foreign countries, many cities, 
many men. The recent tendency of our great Republic has been 
to stifle commerce for the benefit of manufacture, even for the 
manufacture of poor things, or of goods which can better be 

22 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

made elsewhere. At least, let us here not forget that the object of 
life is living ; and wherever we earn our substance, we Americans 
more and more shall seek for our homes such a charming coun- 
try as you have about you here. Just as the great West, with 
its new fortunes, is coming back to New England to live, let all 
New England cling, more and more, to those favored spots 
where there are hills and fields and forests and clean rivers, — 
not shops and mills. 

If I may forecast the future, I should urge you to remember 
this. Even from the point of view of personal profit, I doubt if 
my friend with his " good, nice, manufactories " was correct. 
Your land, in money, even, will be worth far more in a place of 
beauty, a sweet and quiet town with the best of schools and 
churches and of government, and, I may add, of neighborliness, 
than it would be worth as lots for tenements in a mill village. 
There is a limit to that value, even in price. There is almost no 
limit to the other. Your future, it seems to me, lies in keeping 
as you are, only better on the same lines, and, most of all, in 
keeping such people as you have, — only better on the same 
lines, if such a thing be possible. Mr. Smith, again, in his invalu- 
able manuscript notes* that he has kindly let me read, observes 
that Mason Richards planted that beautiful pine grove that still 
stands on Center street. " Forestry," he says, " is not letting 
the land alone, but it is the science of raising trees as crops." 
These Centre street pines were planted by Richards from the 
seed ; and Mr. Smith tells us that such a plantation, with prac- 
tically no labor, only let alone, will earn the owner, net, some 
three per cent, per annum. 

I have said that Dover could hardly be called agricultural, but 
it seems to me a place where the raising of trees for crops might 
well be tried. You have a wonderful chance here. With small 
necessary expenses, adequate wealth to meet them, a compact 
territory, a home of genial population, and the path already 
blocked out for you, you should study for good roads and grand 
forests and clean, sweet fields, and be our leaders in the paths 
of beauty, and, as your Parson Caryl hoped more than fifty 
years ago, and I still shall hope, also in the paths of peace. 

The President : The Committee on original poems has unani- 
mously awarded the prize offered by the General Committee to 
Miss Mabel Colcord of Dover, Radcliffe, 1895. I regret Miss 



*Dover Roads and Farms. 

23 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Colcord is not present to read her delightful poem. Her con- 
tribution to the occasion is as follows : — 

ORIGINAL POEM. 

Dover, we give thee greeting, 
Thy children gathered here, 
Returned from near or distant paths 
To share Old Home Day's cheer. 

Unfurl the flag, deck out the hall, 
Make gay this common ground, 
Let hand clasp hand, and hearts be warm, 
And joy be without bound. 

Dear Mother, long, long years have passed 
Since seventeen-eighty-four, 
When demure Springfield Parish 
Took the name of old Dover. 

A joyful birthday was that first, 

And we give thanks remembering 

The deeds our fathers since have wrought, 

Midst trials beyond numbering. 

Brave men were they who raised our homes, 
Fought off the Indian, killed the bear 
Cleared the rude forest, blazed our roads, 
And made our fields so fair. 

Valiantly, loyally they fought 

The wars our country waged, 

Standing for right 'gainst England's might, 

Wresting to free the slaves. 

Nor was their God forgotten 
In the midst of all the strife, 
This Meeting House came early 
To be part of all their life. 

Caryl and Sanger's names are dear 
To many here to-day, 
Men of great faith and foresight keen, 
Who saw the better way. 

And they must, just as we do now, 
Have loved to roam thy hills, 
Finding thy pastures pleasant, 
A balm for human ills. 

Who e'er forgets or can forget 

The sun from Pegan seen, 

Old Trout Brook and her boiling springs, 

The Charles— the spot first green? 

24 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

And who forgets the stories 
Of Old Williams and the pike, 
Or of the Tale of Tubwreck, 
And all the other like? 

Thou hast not lost the old charm, 
Dear town of modern days, 
Thou haven of sweet rest and peace, 
Amidst the busy ways. ! 

To know thee is to love thee, 
And to honor deeds well done, 
And proudly are we come here 
To do homage, everyone. 

The President : We are all interested in " America," not only 
as our national hymn, but also from the fact that the distin- 
guished author, the Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Smith, was at one time 
a frequent preacher at the Baptist church in Dover. Will you 
all rise and unite in singing 

AMERICA. 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, — 

Of thee I sing : 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrim's pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring! 

My native country, thee, — 
Land of the noble free, — 

Thy name I love : 
I love they rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills ; 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song! 
Let mortal tongues awake; 
Let all that breathe partake; 
Let rocks their silence break, — 

The sound prolong ! 

Our fathers' God, to thee, 
Author of liberty, — 

To thee we sing : 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light; 
Protect us by thy might, — 

Great God, our King. 

25 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

TOWN HALL, 2 P. M. 
Violin Solo — Mrs. Harold Shaw. 

The President: The Governor of the Commonwealth is 
descended on both his paternal and maternal sides from Dover 
stock. His grandmother, Abigail Richards, was born and reared 
on that beautiful farm which lies on either side of Noanet 
Brook, north of Dedham street. This estate is now owned by 
Mr. Augustin H. Parker, Secretary of the General Committee, 
who will read a letter from His Excellency Governor Eben 
Sumner Draper. 

Letter of Governor Draper : — 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
executive department. 

Boston, June 16, 1909. 
Mr. Frank Smith, 
My Dear Mr. Smith: — 

Your very kind letter of the 15th instant is received and I 
assure you I am very sorry that I cannot accept the invitation to 
be at Dover on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of its incor- 
poration. 

This is a disappointment to me for personal reasons, because 
several of my ancestors on both sides lived in the town of Dover. 
James Draper lived in Dedham, but I understand it was that part 
of Dedham which is now Dover. My great-great-grandfather, 
Josiah Richards, lived in Dover and had eight sons, all of whom 
took part in the Revolutionary war, including my great-grand- 
father, Lieutenant Lemuel Richards, who also served in the last 
French and Indian war. 

Under these circumstances it would be peculiarly pleasant for 
me to be with you at the celebration, but I find that I am obliged 
to decline many of the invitations which I receive if I am to 
give the proper amount of time to my duties at the State House. 
I am sure your celebration will be interesting and successful, and 
the town certainly has my best wishes for a future which shall 
be as truly American as its past has been. 

Very truly yours, 

Eben S. Draper. 

The President : I remember as a little boy hearing the discus- 
sion of the farmers in the west part of the town as they worked 
out their highway tax on the road. I recall one who was ever 

26 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

ready to advocate the principal of temperance ; he is with us 
today in his ninty-third year, a living witness of the fruit of 
temperance, neighborly kindness, and good will. Last year he 
ran his mowing machine to cut all the grass on his productive 
farm and I can assure you that he is not afraid of the machine 
today. I present Deacon Asa Talbot. 

Mr. Talbot was loudly applauded and bowed his acknowl- 
edgment. 

The President : The people of Dover and Natick for more 
than a century and a half have been closely associated in school, 
church, and trade affairs, and in most things, especially in trade, 
it has always seemed to me that Natick got the best end of the 
bargain, but today the tables are turned and a resident of Natick 
is to give us of his wisdom and eloquence. I have the pleasure 
of introducing Congressman Charles O. Tirrell of Natick. 

ADDRESS: HON. CHARLES Q. TIRRELL. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I have been a resident of Natick for a long time and as Dover 
and Natick are contiguous territory I am naturally interested in 
this Anniversary Commemoration. Probably I am as familiar 
with the streets and physical characteristics of your town as a 
majority of its citizens. Times without number I have driven 
over them. The sylvan beauties of your hills and valleys have 
been a great attraction. As you approach this town from Sher- 
born and ascend to the southerly bounds of Pegan Hill, there 
opens up a view that appeals to the imagination. Off to the 
right sweeps a vast track of woodland from the valley below to 
the ridge beyond like a forest primeval of long ago. No houses 
are visible, not even the long line of road from Medfield, that 
penetrates the forest. Solitude reigns, as it did when the first 
settler erected his habitation. Or from the opposite direction 
along the banks of the winding Charles one can drive amid the 
ferns and trees with the glint of water on one side and the 
" aisles of the deep wood " on the other. Around you here and 
there in other sections are no indicia of a throbbing life, of 
bustling commerce, of industrial development, but elegant, at- 
tractive or comfortable homes. Well is illustrated, in Dover, the 
famous words of Bryant — 

27 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

" To him who in the love of nature 

Holds communion with her visible forms 
She speaks a varied language." 

Except in the artificial loveliness which wealth has here created 
and the accessories of modern life which have been added, Dover 
is exceptional among the towns near Boston, in reminding us of 
Colonial days. No one would dream you were in the suburbs of 
Boston. For now, as of yore, yours is a small and scattered 
population, much less even than many of its neighbors during 
the first settlement. Here is the 

" Sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, 
The never failing bloom, the busy mill 
The decent church that tops the neighboring hill." 

Therefore, it seems pertinent to draw comparisons between 
the old and new conditions which surround you amid scenes 
whose general characteristics are the same as when the emigrant 
blazed his way and found an abiding place within your precincts. 

Doubtless most of your roads date from many years ago, for 
among the first things done was to make a way of access, even 
although it accommodated few. But no such roads as you have 
today and no such methods of communication were afforded. 
The roads were cart paths, narrow, rocky, with deep ruts, with- 
out bridges and almost impassable at times. In 1756 a stage line 
was started between Boston and New York. It took seven days 
to make the journey . At first two stages and twelve horses suf- 
ficed to do this work. The ordinary journey was forty miles in 
the summer and twenty-five in the winter. One pair of horses 
only seldom averaged over eighteen miles a day. The traveller 
would arrive at a hostelry at about ten o'clock at night and be 
aroused early in the morning to resume his journey. Often he 
would be eighteen hours a day jolted and thrown about, at times 
in danger of being pitched upon the highway. Men sometimes 
made their will in fear of the consequences before venturing so 
far from home. Families parted, as now they part, when a trip 
around the world is in contemplation. The stage was a long 
carriage with four benches and with a light roof, supported by 
eight slender pillars, four on each side. The sides could be 
protected by a leather covering in case of storms. There was no 
place for baggage. You placed it wherever you could find a 
vacant space. You entered the stage any way you could get 
there, there being no openings for that purpose, and so usually 
the traveller got into them over the other seats the best way he 

28 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

could. Three persons could be accommodated on each bench, 
including the driver. 

After the Revolution, horse-back travelling was resorted to 
largely and then a more modernized stage substituted. Many- 
years passed before any perceptible improvement incurred. In 
1812 a regular stage line was first established between Washing- 
ton and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. Baltimore had at 
that time a population of over 50,000 and Washington about 
12,000. It took one and one-half days to make the trip. The 
mail left Washington at 5 a. m. and arrived at the postoffice in 
Baltimore at 11 p. m. When I first went to Washington, nine 
years ago, it was still a narrow road, in places not wide enough 
for teams to pass, with mud here and there in which the wheels 
would sink half way to the hub in the spring, when the frost 
was coming out of the ground. If such was its condition between 
two cities now, one over 600,000 and the other 340,000, we can 
at least imagine the execrable condition of the roads everywhere 
and what an undertaking even to make a moderate journey in 
the century before. Contrast these conditions with the roads of 
Dover today, smooth, stoneless, rutless, over which the wheels 
roll without impediment and the traveller glides swiftly on his 
way. There was very little change in transportation conditions 
until about 1840 when railways made a transformation. 

In most of the Colonial towns, including Dover, a large and 
architecturally attractive church occupies the central site of the 
village and, indeed, seems to dominate the town. Usually they 
are of the Unitarian faith. They illustrate one of the most sin- 
gular episodes in Massachusetts history. Their origin dates 
from a discourse by Dr. Channing on the ordination of Jared 
Sparks over the Congregational Church in Baltimore on May 5, 
1819. From that day here in the old Colony, the Unitarian 
Church, as a rule, became the successor of the old Puritan edifice. 
The religious pendulum swung the other way. I violate no con- 
fidence, I think, in quoting from a letter I received from Charles 
Francis Adams, our ripest scholar, now living, on New England 
topics, who chrystalizes in a few sentences the character of the 
change. 

" The name ' Unitarian ' is a misnomer. The New England 
Unitarian is a wholly different creature from the English Uni- 
tarian of whom Dr. Martineau was a leading exponent. The 
name ' Unitarian ' was adopted in New England merely to dis- 
tinguish the sect from the ' Trinitarian,' the Church of England 
people. The Congregational Unitarian, however, eliminated 

29 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

only the Holy Ghost from the Trinity. He still adhered to the 
God-head and the Only Begotten Son." 

However it may be, none can question that this movement of 
religious forces has done much to soften the asperities of relig- 
ious life and spread the love and practice of Godliness which are 
indeed the fruits of the Spirit. 

Finally, it may be said that the simple life is perhaps best illus- 
trated in the old Colonial town of which Dover is a type. There 
is a tranquilizing influence felt, but indescribable, about them 
all. Here the world is at peace. Its people are " far from the 
madding crowd." There is time afforded for contemplation. 
Peace is within its borders. A community of common purposes 
is created. A quarrel means alienation from your neighbors 
with none to take their place. A feeling of common ownership 
arises. Factious opposition becomes a present evil and so it is 
avoided. As you know each other, so you become, as it were, 
more like a great family, seeking the common interests. Thus 
life moves on with less friction, appealing to the higher instincts 
and thereby leading you to a more beneficient, if not more use- 
ful, life. So that as the sunset glow suffuses the western hills 
and nature proclaims " the peace that passeth understanding," 
as you sit upon your porches or under the shade of the over- 
hanging trees, this admonition nature, history and surroundings 
each, " modest living and good deeds." 

" If you sit down at set of sun, 
And count the things that you have done, 
And counting find some sacrificing deed or word 
To ease the heart of him who heard 
One word most kind that fell like sunshine as it went 
Then you can count that day well spent." 

The President : We are glad to have on our programme today 
several speakers who have become residents of the town in recent 
years. We have one, who, as a professional man, has more than 
a national reputation, and, as an instructor in the Harvard Medi- 
cal School, is laboring to make the best doctors which training 
and science can produce ; men who are not only learned in their 
profession, but have high personal honor and public spirit. On 
his Dover farm he is producing pure milk to save the lives of 
city children or promote the general health of adults. In his 
workshop on this farm, under the direction of skilled workmen, 
he is making scientific instruments which are in demand in many 
parts of the civilized world. Pardon me, if I say that I am 

30 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

especially interested in all that goes on here, because it was on 
the old farm that I first saw the light of day. I present Dr. 
William T. Porter. 

ADDRESS : DR. WILLIAM T. PORTER. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The invitation to address you upon this happy occasion gives 
me unusual pleasure. The hills of Dover, the sunny fields, the 
gentle river moving without haste through restful lowlands, 
have worked their spell. I love the place and I am proud to have 
a share, however small, in this historic day. 

Four generations have passed since Dover became a Town — 
one hundred and twenty-five years — a period brief enough when 
viewed against the long perspective of recorded time, but greater 
than many centuries if measured by the growth of applied 
science. Able speakers have told us with affectionate detail the 
ways of our fathers. They made their wills, those prudent old 
men, before they journeyed to New York. The metropolis has 
still its dangers, but they are not the perils of the road. We go 
round the world with less thought now, and this ease with which 
we move from place to place is to my mind the greatest 
phenomenon of our present day. I shall speak, therefore, of the 
progress of Transportation since Dover was founded. 

What miracles of genius have been spent for this material 
change ! What greater miracles have so transformed the spirit 
that I, a child of the time, in this year of grace nineteen hundred 
and nine, would rather travel to London than to Natick. To 
London I may have at will the glorious force of thrice ten 
thousands horses, — to Natick I must content myself, as becomes 
a farmer, with one horse, a " general purpose " horse at that. 
The end is not yet. Today we rush across the waste of waters 
with the speed of an express train — tomorrow, we fly. We all 
shall live to see the aeroplane as common as the crow. But every 
invention is host to an inconvenience. If keeping the crows from 
the corn calls for a mixture of ferocity and resignation, what 
emotion shall we have left for driving out aeroplanes? 

The locomotive, the marine turbine, and the explosion engine 
are great devices for moving men and things from place to place. 
But it has always been easier to move things than to move ideas. 
For a penny the seeds of the alfalfa may be sent from Turkestan 
to Dover, and the alfalfa will take root, blessing us and our 
children. But the idea of the Dover town meeting has never 
taken root in Turkestan. The modern task is to overcome this 

31 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

inertia of ideas. The part that inventions shall play in this sub- 
lime endeavor should not be too highly estimated. An invention, 
it is true, is itself a frame for an idea, but the frame limits ex- 
pansion. The plow has brought forth only plows since first the 
world began, but the idea of breeding from selected stock 
advances from pedigree pigs to pedigree corn and will some day 
double the wealth of every man who sows and tills. The chief 
value of improved transport is in taking a man to the field of an 
idea and in bringing him back to enrich himself and his neigh- 
bors. 

It would be cheaper to get an idea in print by rural free de- 
livery than to send a man to fetch it, and it was hoped that the 
invention of printing would make it easy thus to move ideas. 
Indeed, the hope is still wistfully alive in the present speaker. 
But physiological learning is here of little comfort. The printed 
word appeals only to the eye that has learned the difficult art of 
reading words as pictures. The spoken word is far superior, 
because it demands admittance at the door of many senses. 
Speech means a man, not a mere inky emanation. When the 
business is weighty, a man is sent, not a word. Two thousand 
years ago wise men came out of the East; our only advance in 
all these ages is that they now sometimes come out of the West. 

Even spoken language is of limited use. Words are symbols, 
pictures, ideographs. If each word make truly a picture in the 
mind, these pictures may be combined to form what we call a 
new picture, though it is really an old one with the parts shifted. 
But the parts must be there before they can be combined. A 
skilful succession of words, such as green fields, pleasant waters, 
and the like, will piece together a Paradise, but it is necessarily 
such a paradise as might be created by the Metropolitan Park 
Commission. No march of words, however stately, could make 
the sunset real to a man blind from his birth. 

This physiological incompetence of words to convey ideas con- 
cerning nature's work explains the difficulty which the farmers 
in one part of the country find in profiting by the experience of 
farmers in other parts. The average brain is wonderfully forti- 
fied against assault by any new idea. The tracts of the experi- 
ment stations do not penetrate. Hence the experimental farms 
which the Government is establishing throughout the South, the 
demonstration trains in the West, and the general resolve to 
bring the mountain to Mahomet. 

This endeavor to bring ideas to every man's door has a pro- 
found economic basis. 

32 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

The economic world is swiftly changing. The walls between 
men, towns, states, and nations are falling before the genius of 
transportation. The Arizona melon ushers in the Boston day; 
when too many rabbits are born in Australia last year's over- 
coats are worn in London ; the South African zebu paws at the 
door of the Chicago Beef Trust. A thousand miles separate us 
from the miners of Illinois, but we, perforce, went cold when 
their wives found bread too dear. The inference is plain. The 
sun never sets upon our markets. We must know as much as 
our neighbor on the other side of the globe or he will under- 
sell us. 

The moral force of the new transportation is not less note- 
worthy. The unceasing cry of this new dawn is " Prosper you 
must." In every part of the land the hammers of Science are 
setting free the streams of Fortune. "Prosper you must, for 
upon your happiness depends our own." 

If we are all to buy from and sell to each other in this new 
world in which space and time are so strangely shrunken, we 
must have an eye to the common good. A wretched man is a 
poor customer. Moreover, the new transportation spreads an 
industry over continents and across the seas, giving it propor- 
tions that require co-operation. These vast bulks must be borne 
on many shoulders. The greater the division the less the prob- 
ability that the shareholders will fight against their own dividends. 
The philanthropist and the self seeker have been at war these 
many generations. The new transportation will unite them. The 
federation of the pocket will point the way to the federation of 
the world. 

The President : We are fortunate in having on this interesting 
occasion a soloist, who, not only in name but in descent, repre- 
sents one of the early setttlers of the town — Henry Tisdale — 
whose descendants have been prominently connected with Dover 
for nearly a century and a half — a family which unites the blood 
of both the Pilgrim and the Puritan, — Mr. James Tisdale. 

Mr. Tisdale sang " Song of a Heart," (L. Tunison.) 

The President : One reason why Dover has remained so small 
in population is because so many of her sons and daughters have 
sought a residence and employment elsewhere. Natives of Dover 
are scattered from Maine to California. You will find them in 
the Klondike and in far away China, and wherever you find 
them, they will be found above the average of their fellows in 
capacity, in integrity, and in loyalty to New England principles. 

33 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

I have the pleasure of presenting a native of the town — a suc- 
cessful merchant — who is a member of one of those good old 
families of twelve children, who has in his veins the blood of 
one of the early settlers who assisted in throwing the tea over- 
board in Boston Harbor, and who took part in the last French 
and Indian War. — Mr. B. Edwin Guy of Worcester. 

ADDRESS: B. EDWIN GUY, ESQ. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I am unable to give any reminiscences of Dover, as my home 
was near the Dedham line, and I attended the Walpole Corner 
School, which included in the district a part of Dover, Medfield, 
Walpole, and Dedham. It would seem as if this district ought 
to be annexed to the town of Dover. If this district were to be 
annexed to the town, many of the stories I could tell would have 
an application. 

As I look over this audience I do not see any people who are 
125 years old — no, nor 100 years old, — and yet it is among 
the possibilities that people can live one hundred years. Charles 
Dudley Warner in " Our Italy " tells of Indians in Southern 
California who lived 125 years, and some who reached a greater 
age. Some years ago, in Germany, a man died at the age of 140 
years and he thought that the Angel of Death had passed him by. 

In 1904, in the State of Indiana, there were twenty-five people 
who reached the one hundred year mark. One man who was 
sick at 112 years said, " I am not going to die," and would not 
have a doctor called. He lived to the age of 114. A correspon- 
dent of the Indianapolis News interviewed the relatives and near 
friends of these old people. He found that they lived an outdoor 
life, were poor, — came into the world without anything, and 
went out of the world without anything. They were not har- 
rassed by severe brain work; some lived during the great Irish 
famine in 1842; some were old pioneers of Kentucky — people, 
as I said before, who lived out-of-doors. If people lived the 
out-of-door life more, they would live to a greater age. Some 
time we may see Pegan Hill again covered with wigwams, and 
people living the same simple life that the Indians led. 

Physiologists used to tell us that we should eat to live, not 
live to eat. There is in New York a club called the Century 
Club. People join this club with the expectation of living a 
hundred years. If they die before that time they forfeit their 
membership. 

34 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

There is much to criticize in the lives of our ancestors, and 
much to commend. When they spoke of a physician in olden 
times, they did not say allopath or homeopath, osteopath, or any 
other path, but simply used the name " doctor." There were 
no tram-cars, but the old stage-coach. In those school days 
boys had no athletics, but instead the woodpile. School teachers 
were somewhat different from what they are at the present time. 
They sometimes worked during the school hours, had a spin- 
ning wheel, and spun. It is related of one person that she used 
to spin yarn, and make it up into large skeins, and if the small 
boys didn't behave themselves, she would wind the yarn under 
their arms and hang them up around the room. A row of them 
must have been a comical sight. We use milder terms than they 
did in my school days. Then, if a person told an untruth, it 
would be said that he told a lie — now, that he prevaricates. 
They had different ideas of living, and they got along on smaller 
salaries. When a man would receive his wages once a month 
or once a quarter, he would lay up a part of it ; now he gets his 
pay every Saturday night, and it all goes. The average man is 
not capable of taking care of his own money. People's ideas of 
economy are different. A London woman speaks of living on a 
mere pittance of $10,000 a year. It costs Katherine Gould 
$120,000. People were reverent, and there was a greater respect 
shown the ministers than today. When Rev. Calvin S. Locke 
or Rev. Dr. Chaplain passed the Walpole Corner School, the 
children felt that a servant of God was passing, and there was 
a reverential feeling that was commendable, and that we should 
do well to consider at the present time. One hundred years ago 
America was a small country, had a small population, and was 
just at the door of being a republic. 

At some future time I shall be glad to be present and find that 
you have learned the secret of living to be a hundred years old. 

The President : I recall that the next speaker was one of the 
first among the many residents who have settled in Dover in re- 
cent years to appreciate her natural beauty. He is also deeply 
interested in her history and traditions — Richard W. Hale, Esq. 

ADDRESS: RICHARD W. HALE, ESQ. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

We all here today seek to emulate the example of the Presi- 
dent of the Day in making our more modest contributions to the 
History of Dover. I wish to speak of one thing with which we 

35 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

are all familiar but with the weight and importance of which 
we are rather unfamiliar. I speak of Greater Dover, of the 
great body of those who have gone out from Dover into the 
world and have been our contribution to the rest of the country. 
With the specific examples of these, we are all acquainted. You 
have heard Governor Draper's letter in which he asserts his 
right to be credited to Dover, although his claim comes through 
an ancestor of long ago. In the example of the President of the 
Day himself we have all that could be asked for as a sample of 
what Dover has produced and sent out for native born citizens. 

Turning to another description of the same thing, the Presi- 
dent of the Day has prepared a list of the soldiers whom Dover 
has contributed to the wars of the nation. We have a just claim 
to be proud of our soldiers. Every community has as great a 
right to be proud of its soldiers in the field as it has to be 
solicitous for peace rather than war in the future. The biogra- 
phies of these soldiers have been prepared and printed and will 
be in the hands of the citizens before this week comes to an end. 

Good as these examples are, it is not of the examples but of 
the mass or body that I wish to speak. We celebrate today the 
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the founding of 
the town. Making a liberal allowance we may describe this as a 
period in which five generations have grown up in Dover. Not 
all families have contributed so much to the country and the 
nation as the mother who gave us Mr. Guy and also the family 
of twelve which he represents, but it is a safe and conservative 
allowance to suppose that during this time there have been four 
children in each family and in each generation. If we allow 
one son to stay at home and take over the farm and one daughter 
to marry here in Dover and to make a good wife to some son 
of another like family, we may reckon that in each generation 
one-half of the children have gone out into the world. In the 
five generations this means that there are now sixteen families 
where there was one in Dover upon the anniversary which we 
celebrate. The population of the town has scarcely increased. 
Where there was one family then there is one family now. The 
other fifteen families have been our contribution to the nation 
and to the growth of the country, and they represent in them- 
selves the population of a small and thriving city, although we 
commonly think of Dover as a country town. This is the city 
of Greater Dover. 

There is another aspect of it none the less important, the side 
of wealth rather than of the individuals and their lifeblood. If 

36 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

Dover had been an English Parish, the eldest sons would have 
stayed at home and the wealth of a century would have 
rolled up in Dover in their possession. Here, under our system 
of equal distribution of property, there has been a division in 
every generation. We are all familiar with the side of this 
which we see at home. There is none who knows the history 
of any old house in Dover who cannot point to an example of 
the son who stays at home with the farm, beginning life with the 
burden of a mortgage on his back, giving the proceeds of the 
mortgage and the savings of a generation to the children who go 
out in the world. He begins with debt where his father ended 
in the ease brought by a life of thrift. But we must remember 
also that the money which goes to the other children has gone 
out with them and it is from such sources as this that our coun- 
try has acquired its present growth, wealth, and strength. These 
are the things which we have done for the country. We are 
entitled to credit for them and to claim a reward for the service 
which our little town has done. This is the day upon which we 
claim that reward. And in the pleasure which we receive from 
the welcome visitors who are with us today, because of the 
things which we have done for the whole country, we may 
find and enjoy our just return. 

The President : I will read an original poem which has been 
anonymously contributed. 

ORIGINAL POEM.* 

Homeward, turn homeward, O child! on your way, 
Back to the old town if just for to-day, 
Back to your hearthstone, and back to your kin, 
Long, you have strayed in your wandering, 
Longing she seeks you, wherever your roam, 
Hoping to gather her fond children home : 
Now you are coming, though short be your stay, 
Welcome ! glad welcome ! in Dover, to-day. 

Brightly, so brightly, gay banners greet you, 
Flowers and music and glad faces meet you, 
Round you she gathers her clasping arm, 
Staying the rush, for this moment of calm. 
Honor her pride, she stands in her beauty, 
Bidding you share in her pleasant duty; 
Storing your greetings, like pearls away, 
Hoping for many returns of the day. 



*Written by Mrs. Joshua L. Woodward. 

37 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Wanderers ! Wanderers, what do you see, 

Changes unceasing, for you and for me : 

Smother the heartache, and look to the hill, 

Pegan, fair Pegan, is changeless still ; 

And sweetly the river and valley and springs, 

Echo the songs the trout brook sings, 

And the factories' whistle, disturbs not her age, 

For beautiful homes are her heritage. 

Children ! O children, what matter I say, 

If the sunny hair has turned to gray, 

If the once sunny smile still warms and cheers 

As you greet your playmates of former years. 

And think as you gather, of those away, 

But whose fondest thoughts are with us to-day 

Cherishing memories of olden times, 

Heaven's blessings reach them, in other climes. 

Forget not ! forget not, our history's page, 
"The deeds of our fathers," the stirring age, 
The wrongs they resisted, the rights upheld, 
Dying for country or serving as well, 
Not flinching or swerving, with one accord, 
Their life for their country, their soul for God. 
And think of the mothers, bless them above, 
They fought life's battles with sweet patient love. 

Remember! remember, joy is not all: 

And the sad hearts yearning for something call, 

Call for a moment to be quite alone — 

Alone, — in "God's Acre" with some little stone, 

And there are so many, mound after mound, 

Tells of some affection and life laid down, 

Of sad burden lifted or fair spirit free, 

Dear Father, our loved ones, they sleep with Thee. 

Dover ! dear Dover, our pride and our home ! 

Back to your call we stand ready to come, 

And our children's children, down through the age, 

Shall render unsullied your civic page : 

Will stand for your rights, and so year by year, 

Cherish the sentiments that make home dear, 

Children by birthright or adoption the same, 

We cherish and honor and love thy name. 

The President: Probably the narrative history of Dover has 
been as fully written as the history of any people in the United 
States ; but that older history which goes back thousands and 
thousands of years has not been touched upon at all, that history 
which gives the reason for the exceeding beauty of this town. 
Only one subject has been assigned to any speaker, that of 
" Dover Beautiful," which was given to one especially qualified 
to treat it, your fellow townsman, Mr. George D. Hall. 

38 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

ADDRESS: GEORGE D. HALL. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

As one of the last speakers I hope you will not look upon me 
as you would at the dentist about to extract a tooth, when I say, 
"Please be patient — I shall only be a minute." 

The subject of " Dover Beautiful " is so broad that in the few 
minutes allowed, I shall speak only of the influence of the past 
in adding to the beauty and charm of the Dover of today. 

I cannot but feel that there is one man, who, more than any 
recent improvements, more than any fine estates, has made 
Dover beautiful in our eyes, and that man is Mr. Frank Smith. 
So vividly has he portrayed, on various occasions, the past life 
of Dover; so graphically has he pictured the primitive little 
homes of our early settlers in the midst of the wilds ; the meet- 
ings at William's Tavern ; the Old Pound, whose care was 
humorously allotted to the most recent bridegroom ; the training 
ground, where martial spirit was inspired ; the Common, that 
sacred plot so dear to every heart ; the Meeting House and all it 
meant to our pious Puritan fathers ; the Cemetery, and the many 
other reminders of the past which have come down to us — as 
our heritage from the Dover of long ago. 

We cannot prize the few remaining relics of our birth too 
highly, and the sentiment — the historic interest — which they 
arouse must appeal to each and every one who thinks of Dover 
as the home, whether past, present or in the future. Much has 
been done towards preserving these reminders of our youth, 
but I wish more might be done, for I feel that the sentiment 
they inspire, — linking as they do, the past with the present — 
is the highest type of beauty, that which appeals to the heart, 
rather than to the eye. 

The subject given me, " Dover Beautiful," is like a house with 
many windows — there are so many points of view. I love to 
look out of the old attic window with its blue tinted lights of 
clouded glass which seem to reflect the scenes of long ago, 
and through whose panes can be seen the huge forests of prime- 
val growth, crowding down upon the narrow paths, or roads. 
We see the winding brook so full of trout, with animal tracks 
along the banks, and hear the songs of the wild birds now almost 
extinct. We see the miniature home of the miniature clearing 
and we feel the struggle of life. 

What does the window of today show us? We find the 
primeval growth has long since disappeared, leaving only as 

39 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

reminders of their magnificence, a few scattered veterans of the 
grand old white oak, or perhaps some stately elms, planted and 
cared for by willing hands of a century or more ago. We see the 
old paths developed into winding roads, and we see the brook 
now skirting a carefully cultivated field and dancing in the sun, 
instead of wending its way through the dark, dense forests. 

We see some of the old pioneer farm buildings weathered by 
the rain of many generations and with the clearings about them 
now extended into large farms. We see other clearings of recent 
date upon which country homes have been built. But I am glad 
to say that not a few of these clearings have developed from the 
old-time homestead. And so we turn from the window rejoicing 
that Dover has not developed so as to obliterate the past, but 
still retains many traces of her founders, and this, it seems to 
me, is one of the great factors — sentimental if you will — that 
adds to the beauty of Dover as we find her today. 

There may be some who would like to see Dover improved, as 
they call it, with state highways, trolley lines, electric lights on 
every corner, and industries ; but I am not one of these. 

I feel that Dover's greatest future lies in her developing as a 
community of country homes — free from the noise and the 
turmoil of the city ; developing but not changing the character 
of the place or the charm of her individuality; cherishing the 
sentiments for the past, and rejoicing in the natural picturesque- 
ness of our township which already has attracted so many to 
our town. I, for one, hope to see Dover develop, but always in 
the spirit of simplicity and on those lines which will make her 
remarkable as the ideal community for country homes. 

The President: The town meeting is the oldest institute 
among us, an institution which demands the loyalty of every 
voter. In our modern life organizations have a prominent place 
and when rightly understood are often found to admirably sup- 
plement the old established institutions. I present the present 
town moderator, who has also been asked to represent the organ- 
izations of the town on this occasion, Mr. Hubbard C. Packard. 

ADDRESS $ HUBBARD C. PACKARD, ESQ. 

Mr. President, Friends and Neighbors: 

In behalf of the townspeople through their officers, whom 
I have the honor to represent today, we extend to all who 
are found within the bounds of our town a hearty greet- 
ing and a most cordial welcome. I deem it an honor 

40 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

as it certainly is a pleasure, to be permitted to speak 
on this good occasion, because we are all working 
together to make this an occasion that shall last in our mem- 
ory for many a year. We want to make this a pleasant occa- 
sion for those who are with us for a day — prospective neigh- 
bors, perhaps — for those who are with us every day, born here 
and have always lived here. How much we miss such when 
they are taken away ! But more especially do we desire to make 
this an enjoyable occasion to those who here drew their first 
breath of God's pure air as it came over these old hills of Dover. 
Here it was they first saw the light of day. It was here they 
lived through childhood's happy hours to youth, to manhood or 
womanhood, until circumstances or conditions, perhaps, com- 
pelled them to go reluctantly away. But you have come back 
to-day to enjoy with us that sane, sensible, and sanguine enjoy- 
ment that comes with true old age. For as you know, we are 
celebrating our one hundred and twenty-fifth birthday. 

A gentleman who has recently selected this town for his per- 
manent residence, said : " I have come to Dover for good fresh 
air and a quiet place to sleep." Now we certainly have these 
things here in abundance, and probably if he had continued his 
remark on the subject he would have said something like this — 
for he is certainly a most estimable man — "I came also to live, 
to love, and to die with the people. I come to Dover to ac- 
quaint myself with her social and religious life ; I come to 
familiarize myself with her school system, for I consider this 
institution the greatest and most important in ours of any land." 

Now while we do have conditions which are conducive to slum- 
ber, except it be the night before the Fourth, we have a good- 
sized field in which there are many gardens, splendid places for 
labor, all of which are demanding laborers. 

To name all the different organizations without briefly stating 
their purposes would be like asking you to be seated at a dining 
table and giving you a menu card only. First, we have the 
church, that star of hope which has ever led the nations, which 
must ever lead them, and he who turns his back on her takes 
one step at least in the direction of chaos. However we may 
have erred in our understanding of her mission, however much 
we may have erred as a people in our understanding and inter- 
pretation of that grand old book, the Bible, the essentials of 
religion have never changed ; for it is born in the heart of every 
individual, and it is the work of the church to enable it to flower 
to true man- and womanhood. 

41 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Next we have the " Temperance Union," an organization that 
welcomes all. Its meetings are held in this hall every third Sun- 
day evening in every month, — lectures or addresses, musical 
and literary exercises, all educational and entertaining in their 
character — no shall or shan't. Its object is to bring out the 
good the Creator has planted in us, neutralizing injurious things; 
and all honor to its late president, Mr. J. W. Higgins, who did 
so much, who gave so much of his time, of his very life, to this 
Union. 

The Improvement Society was organized, as its name implies, 
for the improvement of public roads, parks, grounds and build- 
ings, all to be done in an artistic, scientific and economical man- 
ner. If it is inoperative now it is not because of a lack of op- 
portunity. 

Next comes the Patrons of Husbandry, of which we have a 
grange here in Dover, — an order specially organized for the 
purpose of stimulating, elevating and educating that class of 
people whom the entire world is dependent upon, namely, the 
American farmer, of whom there are ten million in this country. 
While the first grange was organized in the state of New York 
scarcely more than forty years ago, we will begin to enumerate 
its strength in Maine, which has 56,000; coming to Massachu- 
setts which has 230 granges containing 27,000 ; across New 
England with total 1,000 granges, with 140,000 members, to 
New York adding 70,000; to the West across the Mississippi 
Valley, and the Great Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, 
where its membership has now reached a round million souls. 
Men and women stand equal here as they are destined to in 
every nation of the earth. This order has stood alone for many 
of the improvements we now all enjoy, and alone for many bless- 
ings we all are yet to receive, good roads, rural delivery, parcel 
post, forest preservation, and others. You may send acknowl- 
edgments to the grange for them all. It has outlived its 
critical period ; it is now a recognized power for good. 

And last but by no means least comes the " Dover Historical 
and Natural History Society," organized for the purpose of col- 
lecting and preserving things ancient and honorable, and listen- 
ing to a historical lecture now and then. You might ask — Is 
that all ? — and I would answer — By no means all. Simply 
collecting old things, with some people, is only a fad or fancy, 
diverting a thing of beauty to something akin to idleness. This 
organization should stand and does stand for what the review 
or examination does for the student — to impress on his brain 

42 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

the importance of events, causing us to take account of stock 
in our social, industrial and religious affairs ; causing us in our 
walks over the hills of old Dover, in coming across as frequently 
as we do, a place where once stood a house, a home, to remove 
our hats to the parents who once lived and reared here a family. 
They had few or no historical societies in those days. They 
were too busy in making history for us. 

In closing let me say that the Old First Parish, now town of 
Dover, owes to you, Mr. President, a debt it can never pay. 
Yours is a common name, like the one who composed that im- 
mortal hymn familiar to every man, woman, and child through- 
out this great, broad, and free country, and which will live as 
long as America lives. May your lease of life extend into the 
future, giving you time to delve still deeper and search in the 
archives of our old town and country, bringing forth gems 
purchased only by sacrifice. 

The President : After the solo by Mr. Tisdale the exercises 
of this celebration will close by singing " Auld Lang Syne." 
Mr. Tisdale sang " Call Me Back, " — L. Deuza. 

"AULD LANG SYNE." 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And never brought to mind ; 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And songs of auld lang syne? 
For auld lang syne we meet to-night, 
For auld lang syne, 
To sing the songs our fathers sang 
In days of auld lang syne. 

We've passed through many varied scenes 

Since youth's unclouded day; 

And friends and hopes and happy dreams 

Time's hand hath swept away; 

And voices that once joined with ours, 

In days of auld lang syne, 

Are silent now and blend no more 

In songs of auld lang syne. 

But when we cross the sea of life, 
And reach the heavenly shore, 
We'll sing the songs our fathers sang 
Transcending those of yore : 
We'll meet to sing diviner strains 
Than those of auld lang syne; 
Immortal songs of praise, unknown 
In days of auld lang syne. 

The First Parish Church, the Evangelical Congregational 
Church and the Dover Temperance Union were invited to hold 

43 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

appropriate services in connection with the observance of 
the one hundred and tvventy-fifth anniversary of the incorpora- 
tion of Dover. 

First Parish Church. 

Organized 1749. 

Sermon by the Pastor, Rev. William Rogers Lord. 

Text — Hebrews XL : 40. " That apart from us they should 
not be made perfect." 

We begin Dover's Old Home Week in this Meeting House 
of the old First Parish Society and Church. A fitting place, as 
the facts of Dover's history evidence. 

This is no place or time for even a suggestion of the detailed 
story of that heroic beginning and continuing by which the men 
and women here, as elsewhere, made New England forever great. 
But let us see, at least in outline, the big facts in their historic 
relation, and thus discover, for our use and inspiration, their 
meaning. 

Speaking with measured care, it is true that, but for the spirit 
and life of which the First Parish Church was the expression, 
there never would have been a town of Dover in the 18th cen- 
tury, as there would not have been a Boston, a Dorchester, Rox- 
bury, Dedham, and the rest, all of which were born of the same 
inspiration. 

In a word, under all and through all the first two hundred 
years of Dover's history, we shall find a religious motive sat- 
urating its political and social life, and expressing itself directly 
in all that this Meeting House symbolizes. 

Let us first see clearly some maps, as it were, of facts and 
dates by which we can the more easily and swiftly move through 
our story. 

Geographically, with the slightest alteration, Dover was in 
the beginning what it is to-day, — its boundaries being at the 
present time, Wellesley and Needham on the north, Dedham on 
the east, Walpole and Medfield on the south, and Sherborne and 
Natick on the west. 

And then a map, so to speak, of its settlement and growth into 
a town. 

For one hundred years Dover was an undivided, even an 
indistinguishable part of Dedham, — I mean from 1640, when 
the first family moved within the present town boundaries and 
made a home. And not for one hundred years more did Dover 
enter into the last full privilege of a New England town proper. 

44 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

In 1748, however, 108 years after the coming of its first 
settler, this territory subsequently named Dover, became a par- 
tially independent precinct of Dedham, known as the * Spring- 
field Precinct, and having thereby certain rights of church at- 
tendance and ministerial support in nearer towns. 

This partial independence became full independence in 1784, 
thirty-six years later, when a sufficient population enabled the 
Legislature or General Court to set off this territory as the 
Dover District, incorporated and in every way a town, save that, 
owing to the lack of a sufficient number of voters, 150, it was 
not entitled to a representative in the Legislature. 

Not until 1836 was the electorate large enough to give Dover 
its title of a township. So we have 196 years from the begin- 
ning of what was to be the town, i. e., from its first settler, to 
its full title. And from the end of that time till the beginning 
of the present year, 1909, sixty-three years, — with a total, from 
its first inhabitant, of 269 years. 

Now, a historic map of the several First Parish Meeting 
Houses that have been reared during the life of this church. 

The first one stood upon the ground across the way, where 
today stands the house of worship of the sister of this church, 
the Second Congregational Church. 

The frame of that first Meeting House was raised August 
30th, 1750. Gradually, according to the time for such service 
as the farmers themselves could give, the work progressed, till 
the building was dedicated, unfinished but fit for use, in Decem- 
ber, 1754. It was not lathed and plastered until 1758, with, as 
the records have it, " an alley left in ye Meeting House from ye 
front door to ye pulpit." A house not different from this one, 
less six feet in length and width, — 42x32x20 feet, — but 
" without steeple, chimney or ornament." 

In 1810 this first building burned. 

The second building was placed upon this spot where we wor- 
ship today in the years 1810-'ll. It was a structure of which 
the people may well have been proud, and in which we here 
today would also have taken pride, had not fire destroyed it in 
1839. It was modeled after the First Parish Church in Eliot 
Square, Roxbury. It was said that the distinguished architect 
Bulfinch had something to do with the plans. It was large, too 
large for the population. As I have said, this too was burned 
in the year 1839. 



*Named from the springs of pure water which still flow within 
the town. 

45 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

The third church building, erected in the same year with the 
destruction of the second, is the one in which we are gathered 
today, — and it should be here observed that it is not an unbe- 
coming building, judged by the pattern of the New England 
Meeting House. 

Now, what living throbbing story gives interest and meaning 
to these dry " maps " of territory, dates and facts ? 

The first settler, Henry Wilson, when he crossed the line 
which now separates Dover from Dedham, brought with him in 
his heart, the First Parish Church. That is to say, it was 
inconceivable to him, we may presume, that a community of 
men could anywhere dwell without a Meeting House as the 
center of their life. Why so? Because Henry Wilson and the 
men and women who had sailed the seas and entered this, the 
then untamed wilderness, were driven hither by a spirit like that 
which, in the Hebrew story, carried Abraham from his old 
home ; these also went out, " not knowing whither they went," 
being only sure that they sought after a church and common- 
wealth which had real foundations in God's life and laws. 

The church was the center of their hearts' devotion. And 
thus the Meeting House was naturally the center of every vil- 
lage and scattered town. So significant was the church in the 
thought of these people that they did not see how they violated 
the fundamental principles of their own religion, when they 
made laws compelling from every one, not only church support 
in the financial sense, but church attendance, under penalties 
not light, — a severity from which we draw back and which 
we censure, not realizing that we, too, in their time, would have 
done as they did. 

To them, religion meant so much, and the church, as a means 
of religious culture, so much, that they could not bear the 
thought that any, through carelessness, should miss its advan- 
tages, even as we now are so sure of the necessity and benefits 
of the public school, that we compel all people to support it and 
all children to attend it, or its equivalent. 

A church, church support, and church attendance were the 
first thought of the first Dover settlers. Every Sunday, for 
the first 100 years, husband and wife, and the children, as many 
as could cover the distance, walked or rode on horse-back, four, 
five, six or even ten or twelve miles, over the trail or rough, 
newly-broken road, on what was then wooded or stone-covered 
country, to the Dedham Meeting House. It was a long way to 
go, but few, I suspect, were driven thither through fear of the 

46 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

penalties of non-attendance, for this exacting law was of their 
own getting. No! It was conscience and something more, that 
drew them. 

No doubt, as the population increased, the prospect of a 
meeting-house of their own, in the center of their town-to-be, 
was discussed, in neighborly gatherings, till the church took 
form on the hill over the way, and in the year 1754 was ded- 
icated. There, upon that hill, was at once the sign of the essen- 
tial life of the people and their common home. 

In the picture of the first house they built, we may again see 
how much religion meant in their lives. Behold a structure not 
different in form, as I have said, from the one, but " without 
steeple, chimney, or ornament ; " and for some years without 
lathing or plastering. Without chimney, mark you. And no 
Sunday was too cold in those earlier years, or while that build- 
ing stood, to prevent the whole parish from gathering to express 
in congregational form their spiritual aspirations. Foot-stoves 
for some of the women were the only means of tempering the 
air to the bodies of the most sensitive, — and after an inter- 
mission at the "Noon House" (a school house nearby), again 
the people gathered to their worship. 

Was I wrong, then, in remarking that the first settler and 
settlers carried this First Parish Church in their bosoms, and 
were not satisfied until they saw it standing here, their Zion, 
to which they went up every Sunday, saying each one, in his 
heart, " I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into 
the house of the Lord " ? 

These first generations (I say generations, for there were 
four of them up to the ending of what may be reckoned the 
Puritan rule and custom) — these first generations set this 
greatest value on their Meeting House not only because it served 
as an expression of their religious devoutness, but because in it 
and through it there came educational influences that were very 
effective in the days when schools were inadequate, and public 
journals almost or altogether unknown. 

The minister was not only a preacher but a teacher. Every 
minister in the earlier days was truly liberally educated. The 
two pastors of long settlement in this First Parish, Mr. Caryl 
and Mr. Sanger, were Harvard men of high standing as scholars, 
and of the others who preached for a time in the pulpit of this 
church, one afterward became President of Harvard College, 
Dr. Samuel Locke. 

The associations, the social meetings, the gatherings in the 

47 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

interest of public welfare were educational then as they are 
now. The church was not only in itself educational, but begin- 
ning with the minister, its officers and leaders were the prime 
movers in the schools of Dover, as in every New England town. 
The leading deacon in this church, in the year 1789, Mr. 
Joseph Haven, is the only person historically recorded as having 
given money for public education. Dr. Sanger, for forty-seven 
years pastor of this church (1812-1859), was the public school 
system itself in power and efficiency, while he started and kept a 
public library at his own house. 

Again, these men of the first four generations believed that 
the church was the natural center of moral reform, — not only 
the inspiration of individual regeneration, but the voice in the 
community through which any morally certified reform might 
speak. Then, as in later times, the Temperance reformation 
took hold of pastors and people. 

In those days, when ministers and church officers were ex- 
pected to use intoxicants even to excess in social intercourse, 
it was in the church, through its ministers and officers and 
leaders, mainly, that the great wave of Temperance reformation 
was carried over the land. 

Further, the old First Parish Meeting House was here, as 
elsewhere in New England, a Meeting House. It was here and 
here only that all the people met together. It was the social 
center where brother men saluted, or more intimately com- 
muned at least once a week. 

Now, in the Puritan mind, the idea of Church and State was 
altogether democratic. But the full logic of this doctrine these 
people were not, at this stage of their development, prepared 
to accept. Even in the seating of the people, aristocratic con- 
siderations were observed, so that the most trying experience 
that the committee had, in ordering the arrangements for occu- 
pancy, was in the matter of seating the families according to 
recognized dignity, for, by the social customs of those times, 
" the first families " sat in the front seats. And this was not 
the only social distinction granted in that time, for those " first 
families " were permitted to leave the church first, following 
the minister, who led, with his wife upon his arm, the rest of 
the congregation respectfully standing meanwhile. 

But in some sense, in every way that the enlightenment of the 
time would permit, in the church-meeting was the democratic 
touch of all ages and classes and races. All had seats assigned 
them, and they came, and no doubt, in the free air outside, be- 

48 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

fore, between, and after the services, the rich and the poor, 
even master and slave, did touch each other's hearts in the glow 
of the heavenly vision of the gospel of love. 

Once more, in this very Meeting House in which we sit to- 
day, this church came consciously to the logic of the premise 
upon which the religion of Puritanism (much more the religion 
of Christianity) is founded, viz.: to the discovery that individ- 
ual freedom, the right of private judgment in religion, means 
liberal religion. Not all, — not every one in Dover, that is, — 
were prepared to accept this conclusion ; a very few dissented, 
and two left the First Parish Church, to help establish the sister 
church, whose Meeting House is now across the way. Between 
these two churches have always been the happiest and most 
friendly relations. 

But it was a great deal to find out that no man had a right 
to bind another's thought and conscience in matters religious, 
or further still, to deny him fellowship in worship, word and 
work. There were steps yet to be taken, to be sure, by the com- 
ing generations, before religious freedom could be perfectly real- 
ized. But here, as elsewhere throughout New England, the door 
was opened, till now men and women of all Protestant religious 
faiths are rapidly coming to the bond of fellowship with each 
other which has been for a long time the only bond in many 
of our Liberal Churches, viz. : " In the love of the truth, and 
in the spirit of Jesus, we unite for the worship of God and the 
service of man." 

There is still one other salient point to note in this review of 
the place of the First Parish Church in the first hundred years 
of Dover's history. The First Parish Church was the center 
of the political life of the people. It was within the Meeting 
House that town affairs were conducted. It was here the fathers 
met not solely because it was their only public building; it was 
as much because their conception of government was so relig- 
ious that the Church was, to them, the best place in which to 
perform their political vows — votes. — (The word vote comes 
from a Latin word meaning vow, and is thus derivatively of re- 
ligious significance.) 

God was author not only of that body called a church, but 
of that body called a town or state. And indeed, till the 19th 
century was one-third gone, Church and State were one and 
indissoluble. The democratic conception of the Church (all 
souls equal before God), carried with it the proposition all souls 
are free and equal in the State. 

49 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

There cannot be the least doubt that the association of gov- 
ernment so intimately with religion made for a moral dignity 
and quality in the officers of town and state not obtaining now. 
Citizens seem to have lost the sense of the divine sanctions of 
government as springing out of the same sacred human spirit as 
the Church. Men do not generally now " pay their vows unto the 
Lord " in their ballots. They too generally vote in a debased 
sense of the word. 

This, then, was the place of the church (of which this First 
Parish Meeting House was an expression) in the heart of the 
generations that made the history of the town of Dover worthy 
to be written and kept in the story of the early and later hero- 
isms of New England's settlements. 

There were heroisms in crises like the Revolutionary War 
(in which Dover took no small part), crises which we all rec- 
ognize, but we overlook the fact that the whole life of these 
people was heroic, living, as they did, every day under condi- 
tions that took hearts of steady greatness to endure and to en- 
dure cheerfully. Not in war then, more than in war nozv, is 
the truest heroism of life found and expressed, but in the un- 
failing spirit of fidelity to duty in the steady on-going of life. 

I have dealt thus far with the history of this Church during 
its first one hundred years. I do not forget the fifty years of its 
existence since, for whatever of worthy story these later years 
have to tell, it must be of the general character with the pre- 
ceding life to which it has been related and by which it has 
been effected. 

There is not time today to note the conditions, general and 
local, that have wrought great changes in the constituency of 
this church. What time remains is for lessons, for the present 
and the future, affecting you who now live on these hills for- 
ever made sacred by those whose life centered about this holy 
place. 

The first obvious point affecting the present, in this review, 
is not the most important, because not the most spiritual, but im- 
portant enough. 

This old wooden building is a sacred shrine which ought, by 
all who dwell in Dover, to be sacredly and beautifully kept. 
In form, as in association, it symbolizes the heroic spirit of the 
noble men and women whose hearts' aspiration and consecra- 
tion it expressed. This building is not one but three, for in it 
are embodied, as it were, the devotion and self-sacrifice that 
wrought the two earlier shrines. 

50 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

It seems to me, that if any of Dover's residents have no least 
interest in the present spiritual content of this house, that, just 
out of reverence for the devoted souls who once reared it and its 
two predecessors, this place should shine with artistic touch 
through grateful contributions. 

This building was for those hero fathers and mothers their 
shrine ; you must make it now their monument, if for you it has 
no further use. 

But this building should be more than a monument. It should, 
with the church across the way, be, as of old, the center of moral 
power in Dover. 

The church was the moral training school for our fathers, and, 
appealing to the testimony of experience in modern life, I do 
not know of any adequate substitute in moral training for us. 

There has been much said of late about the moral inefficiency 
of the church, but let me say that, after twenty-five years' study 
of this particular matter, I find that the church is the home of 
spiritual ideals through which the great political or social heroes 
of ancient and modern times have been inspired and equipped. 
Where else could an Edward Everett Hale and others have 
caught their vision and been furnished with their zeal? 

Even those who left the church and worked their work without 
the church's organized help, saw the vision and heard the voice 
of their commission within its walls. William Lloyd Garrison 
and other reformers were impatient of the comparatively dull 
moral sense of their associates. But it must ever be thus; evolu- 
tion is slow in the average man, — the vision comes later, too 
late for immediate action. 

But let me point out that the latest political and social reforms 
have been, and are being, wrought out by men who, with an 
exception or two, died within the church, or who are now living 
under its influence, and directly connected with it. 

Take, for example, Civil Service Reform (I speak from per- 
sonal knowledge and association). The reform was born in the 
hearts of men deeply interested in some church, and it was 
carried forward to its beneficent completion, — complete, at 
least, in the Federal government, — through leaders and fol- 
lowers of intimate church relations, — again, with one exception. 

And in special localities, like our cities, this and other civic 
reforms have been worked out, or are being, for the most part, 
worked out through the self-sacrifice of personal attention, as 

51 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

well as through gifts of money, by men who have owed their 
inspiration and ideals to some church. 

A fair inquiry, in judging the church, is not whether all who 
are of it are morally efficient, but whether, as a fact, the church, 
through few or many, furnishes moral power for society. 

Is there not an analogy between the church and the school as 
institutions, with respect to their essential importance in the 
upbuilding of society? While now and then, rarely, very rarely, 
a George William Curtiss will arrive at the stature of a recog- 
nized educated and cultured man, without a college or university, 
nearly every one comes to his intellectual attainments through 
all the grades of our institutions of learning. 

So there are, undoubtedly, spiritual ideals and moral powers 
to be had through other means than the church, but is not the 
man who has these without the help of the church, even more 
rare than is the scholar without school and college? 

I do not wish to take the time now to develop this thought 
further. (I shall do this at another time in printed form). But 
one other point on this topic I merely suggest. May we not, we 
who are living now in fairly good moral efficiency without the 
church, be living upon the moral capital of our forebears, who 
have left us, in part, the results of their own earnestly sought 
moral attainments? 

If the church, based upon supernatural sanctions, is rapidly 
passing away (and I believe it is), is there not more clearly 
revealed the church in the nature of things, — the Church spring- 
ing out of human nature as spring the Family and the State ? 

Once more, every community needs the Liberal Church for 
its educational power. I have myself seen people become quite 
liberally educated through the church and its immediate and 
auxiliary organizations. The spiritual and the higher intellectual 
life are intimately associated. For high-minded impulse, intel- 
lectually determined, the church is an agency not to be lightly 
considered. 

Lastly — this church was never more needed than now, as a 
meeting-house. It seems to me, (and I would like to have you 
all think of this, whether it be not so), but it seems to me that it 
is wrong that there should be no common meeting-place for all 
the kinds of people who dwell upon these beautiful hills, where 
once lived men who felt in some way the obligations of brother- 
hood, and once a week shared in a common worship and looked 
into each other's faces, if between them passed no other greet- 
ing. It was, if nothing more, a very human, friendly thing to 

52 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

do, to sit together, master and slave, rich and poor, educated and 
ignorant, in the consciousness of the " Oneness of Humanity " 
as Whittier called it. 

Dover, like every other place, needs a meeting-house and what 
place so fit as the one in which the experience of the Fatherhood 
of God is correlated by the experience of the Brotherhood of 
Man? 

We are here today, then, on the threshold of this " Old Home 
Week," marking the 125th anniversary of the Dover township, 
and looking back upon the essential meaning of this town's 
history. 

We discover that meaning to be religious. And, gathering in 
this surviving meeting-house, we cannot but feel the spell of the 
earlier worship. 

The spirits of the men and women of 1784 and of their sons 
and daughters of later years, seem to sit with us and witness 
with us to the imperishable elements of their and our common 
religion. 

The Past, the Present, — yea, I have said, even the Future, 
— meet us here at this hour. We cannot look back without feel- 
ing the challenge of the spiritual Now and the To Be. 

When, one hundred years hence, the story of your lives will 
be reviewed on some Old Home Week occasion in what esteem 
will they be held ? 

" That apart from us they should not be made perfect." These 
men of 1784, and before and after, were not perfect men — far 
from it. But their faults were mainly of an age and a local 
environment, to which we in that time would also have been 
subject. They lived in the light they had and did their work 
faithfully, — imperfectly, to be sure, as must needs have been 
under those conditions. But they wrought in the faith that the 
coming generations would perfect that which they had begun. 

Can we who live in so much more light than theirs, light 
religious, light scientific, light social, be less loyal to our vision 
than they to theirs? What manner of men and women ought 
we to be, in every individual and co-operative endeavor to keep 
burning the altar-fires of " the Faith that makes faithful " ? 

Evangelical Congregational Church. 
Organized 1838. 

The Rev. Harry C. Vrooman, pastor, preached an appropriate 
sermon. As his discourse was entirely extemporaneous a copy 
could not be procured. 

53 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Dover Temperance Union. 
Organized 1872. 

ADDRESS: FRANK SMITH, ESQ. 

A CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN TEMPERANCE IN 
DOVER. 

Surely there is no more appropriate way of closing the success- 
ful celebration of the 125th anniversary of the incorporation of 
Dover than by a consideration of the progress that has been 
made in temperance in this town during the last century. As 
there is nothing which adds more to the general health and 
material prosperity of a people than temperance, so there is 
nothing which injures the welfare of a community more 
than intemperance. I want, therefore, to direct your atten- 
tion to the conditions which have existed here from the 
earliest settlement of the town to the present time. In 
this review we shall see that the cause of temperance has had a 
growth, an evolution in the years that have passed. At the 
starting point everybody drank, men, women and children. 
Drunkenness was as common and as little considered as smoking 
is today. Even Robert B. Thomas, in his Old Farmer's Alma- 
nack, which from the first issue in 1793 to the present time, has 
been read around Dover firesides, recommended in the initial 
number the drinking of cider. He said : " See that your cellars 
are well stored with good cider, that wholesome and cheering 
liquor, which is the product of your own farms. No man is to 
be pitied that cannot enjoy himself or his friend, over a pot of 
good cider, the product of his own country, and perhaps his own 
farm." 

Ralph Day, one of the early Dedham settlers, and the father 
of Ralph Day, Jr., who settled the Day homestead at the foot 
of Strawberry Hill Street nearly two hundred years ago, illus- 
trates in his will, made in 1677, the large part which cider and 
beer had in the early life of the people. He thought his widow, 
whom he expected to keep house after his death, needed the fol- 
lowing conveniences and utensils : the use of the oven and the 
room to brew and mash therein, as she shall see cause from time 
to time ; the great kettle and the least one ; the biggest skillet 
and the little iron pot, two pewter platters, four keelers, great 
trays or bowls and dishes and small trays to the number of three, 
three cider barrels, two beer vessels and one brewing keeler, and 
such dry casks as she shall see cause to make use of, to put in 
corn or malt. 

54 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

The tavern was always built near the meeting-house for the 
accommodation of the worshippers and was considered second 
in importance only to the church. The tavern keeper was 
usually the only business man in the vicinity, and in those days 
a respectable rum seller was regarded as a great addition to a 
town. In 1671 the parish had completed its meeting house and 
Daniel Whiting provided a tavern, which was greatly appreciated 
by the citizens, as it was the source of all information to the 
community. On Sunday for half a century, the men during the 
noon hour gathered around the bar in the tavern and drank flip 
and toddy. When Capt. Samuel Fisher moved from Powisset, 
about the year 1800, to Dover Centre, having purchased the farm 
now owned by Mr. Eben Higgins, he invited all who could not 
conveniently return to their homes during the intermission on 
Sunday, to come to his house, where he furnished a lunch of 
bread and cheese. Many availed themselves of this privilege, 
and his hospitality had a good effect in reducing the attendance 
at the tavern. 

Being off from the line of travel, Dover wasn't even a stage- 
coach town. For nearly a century the inhabitants had no con- 
tinuous daily connection with Boston. As occasion demanded, 
farmers drove into Boston, a custom which at least one resident 
has kept up to to the present time. In the old tavern, as we have 
seen, the parish folk gathered around the fire in winter, and in 
summer time met in the cool shade of the buttonwood tree still 
standing on Dedham Street, to discuss public questions ; the 
resistance of British tyranny, their crops, the weather, and to 
engage in local gossip, all of which was washed down by a mug 
of flip or a horn of toddy. The walls of the tavern were posted 
with notices of parish meetings, elections, school district meet- 
ings, bills of sale, and auctions. Here was witnessed the pathet- 
ic scene of auctioning off the town paupers (many of ,whom had 
been brought to this state through their indulgence in strong 
drink) to the lowest bidder. Such auctions, called vendues, 
were held by vote of the town as late as 1820 in this old tavern. 

Here the Sons of Liberty met and advocated the doctrine of 
liberty. In after years the old soldiers of the Revolution gath- 
ered around the fire in the Williams Tavern and fought their 
battles o'er. Aaron Whiting used to tell how he stood by the 
side of his brother-in-law, Elias Haven, when he was shot down 
by a British musket ball near the corner of the Arlington Meet- 
ing-house on the afternoon of April 19, 1775. Daniel Whiting 
related his experience as a captain, at the battle of Bunker Hill, 

55 



12STH ANNIVERSARY 

and as a Colonel in the Mass. 6th Regt., while Capt. Ebenezer 
Battelle described that wonderful work of fortifying Dorchester 
Heights, which compelled the British troops to evacuate Boston, 
a work in which many Dover farmers were engaged. Thomas 
Larrabee, as a member of Washington's Life Guard, told the 
story of the Continental Army; of the soldiers' exposure during 
that terrible winter at Valley Forge ; Lieut. Ebenezer Newell 
described the life of the Dover farmers in guarding Burgoyne's 
troops during the winter of 1778; while Lieut. Asa Richards 
related his experience in doing guard duty in the old fort at 
Roxbury. Lieut. Lemuel Richards was in Rhode Island for a 
time and probably re-enforced the gallant army of Gen. Lafay- 
ette. Such were the men who gathered in large numbers and 
took their grog around the fire of the old tavern or in the store 
a century ago. And we were glad when the late J. W. Higgins, 
a few years since, re-opened the old store for a time, which en- 
abled some of us to lean on the old counters where our fathers, 
grandfathers, and great-grandfathers had many times leaned 
before. 

While in the olden time much New England rum was sold over 
those old cracked and warped counters, yet, today, under our 
present civilization it would be impossible to buy liquor in any 
store in town. Not only did the store in the center of the town 
sell liquor, but all other stores as well. It was the great staple 
in every country store, and was sold by the gallon, quart, pint 
and gill. At this time a store in Dover supplied the wants of the 
people at what is now Charles River Village, while two stores 
sold liquor in the west part of the town. A set of copper meas- 
ures used in dispensing liquor in one of these old stores is still in 
existence. During the past year I have gone over the account 
books and papers of my grandfather, Isaac Howe, who was pro- 
prietor of the store and tavern here nearly a century ago. These 
old books have charges against the heads of families of the town 
which show that their purchases of rum usually exceeded in 
cost their purchases of the necessities of life, as the following 
bill shows : 

1824 — Calvin Newell to Isaac Howe, Dr.— Mar. 3, Rum & 
Sling— .25; Mar. 5, Sling .08; Rum & Sugar— .22; Mar. 9, 
Rum, sugar, etc., .40; Mar. 12, Tea, fish, etc. — .48; Mar. 31, 
2 Qts. rum— .20; Apr. 5, Sling & bread— .28; Apr. 13, Rum 
& sling — .26; Apr. 19, Rum, tea, sling — .62; Apr. 29, Rum & 
sugar — .42; May 5, Rum & tea — .38; May 14, Sugar, tea, to- 
bacco,— .89; May 26, Sugar & Sling— .30; June 17, Sling & 

56 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

fish— .29; July 1, Sling— .09; July 3, Rum, salt, etc.— .52. Lit- 
tle notes of hand abound, given for sums ranging from $1.25 to 
$10.00, which were probably given in settlement of drink scores. 
These notes were as good as cash for at this time a debtor could 
be imprisoned for a debt, however small. Statistics show that 
in one year between 1816 and 1820, seventy-five thousand per- 
sons were imprisoned for debt alone in New York State. The 
following is a good illustration of these notes of hand : 

Dover, Dec. 20, 1825. For value received I promise to pay 
Isaac Howe or order One Dollar 25-100 on demand with in- 
terest. 

Liquor was abundantly furnished on all occasions of public or 
private raising of buildings. It is no wonder that on such occa- 
sions accidents were frequent, and that men often fell from the 
scaffold and were killed or injured for life. When the second 
meeting-house was raised in Dover in 1810, liquor was abundant 
and one poor fellow, in consequence of it, fell from the great 
beam and received injuries which maimed him for life. As late 
as 1819 the town paid for drinks furnished to the carpenters 
while repairing the meeting-house. The practice pertained in my 
boyhood days of giving to little boys the sugar left in the tumbler 
after the father had drunk his grog. In this way an appetite 
was often created for liquor. I have in mind men younger than 
myself who have had an insatiable desire for liquor all their 
lives, whose fathers and grandfathers gave them, from their 
earliest childhood, the sugar left in their toddy tumblers. This 
custom, I think, has entirely passed. 

The doors of the colonial tavern were open to all comers, with 
the exception of apprentices, negroes and Indians. While there 
is no evidence that liquor was sold to Indians, yet they frequented 
the Williams Tavern in large numbers, as it was a busy centre 
a century ago. The late Amos Perry, secretary of the Rhode 
Island Historical Society, who lived at South Natick when a 
boy, used to say that the first elephant he ever saw was an exhi- 
bition in one of the horse sheds at the tavern. A large crowd 
assembled from the adjoining towns to see the elephant, for 
which a fee of ten cents was charged. Of course, liquor was on 
sale, for in those days there was no entertainment or amusement 
free from this temptation. Liquor sellers resorted to all 
imaginable means of dispensing their goods. When I was a boy 
I used to hear my father tell, with great merriment, of an 
ingenious scheme introduced at the fall muster in 1838, held on 
Dedham plain, for the sale of liquor on the grounds. A " stripped 

57 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

pig," which had been imported, was placed on exhibition at a fee 
of fourpence, the price of a glass of New England rum. The 
exhibitors had the goods to deliver and each visitor received 
his glass of rum without further pay. This incident was put 
into verse and copies of the " stripped pig " were common in my 
boyhood days and, perhaps, may still be found in Dover homes. 
Writers of colonial times tell us of fathers who were so strongly 
addicted to the use of strong drink that they would sell the 
shoes from off their children's feet to get money with which to 
purchase liquor; of homes where such indispensable articles as 
andirons, which were universally used in maintaining a fire, 
before the invention of grates and stoves, were entirely lacking, 
owing to the abject poverty caused by intemperance, which sold 
off everything of comfort to indulge its insatiate desire. We can 
hardly imagine such a condition as this today in our pleasant 
country life. 

In the early settlement of the town apples were gathered in 
large quantities from trees grown from seed brought over from 
England. Orchards were early found on the Wilson farm on 
Strawberry Hill, the Chickering farm at the centre of the town, 
and on the Plimpton farm in the west part of Dover. From 
their apples the settlers made large quantities of cider, which 
soon took the place of malt liquors. Cider mills were set up as 
follows : In the east part of the town on the farms of Henry 
Wilson and Ebenezer Richards ; at the centre, on Nathaniel 
Chickering's, also on Jonathan Whiting's farm on the Clay 
Brook road ; in the north district on James Draper's, Jared 
Allen's, Michael Bacon's and Warren Sawin's farms ; in the 
west part of the town on the Seth Wight and Henry Goulding 
farms ; and in the south part of the town on the Bussey place, 
also at Jesse Newell's, on Centre Street. In addition, cider mills 
were close at hand in all the surrounding towns, many of them 
being located just across the line on adjoining farms, as on 
Reuben Draper's on Pegan Hill. Other farmers of the town 
either had an interest in the above mills, or took their apples 
to them, where, on payment of a toll, they were made into cider, 
and in this way all residents of the town had access to mills 
where large qauntities of cider was made. The first cider press 
was located, as one might expect, on the farm of Henry Wilson, 
the first settler. Here has been illustrated, in the years that have 
passed, the entire evolution in the process of cider making from 
the hand press of two hundred years ago, to the steam cider mill 
of yesterday. The first mill on the Wilson farm stood out of 

58 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

doors, with only a roof over the press. This was the most 
primitive kind of mill, and by its use cider making was a very 
laborious process. 

The amount of cider which farmers put into their cellars, and 
which was drunk by the household, was enormous. I recall an 
inventory of the personal estate of a resident of Dover, whose 
grandchildren and great-grandchildren are probably before me, 
which contained a list of a hundred barrels of cider. Of course, 
this cider was not all intended for drinking purposes, — much of 
it was made into vinegar or sold in Boston, — yet large quanti- 
ties of the best cider was always put into the farmer's cellar for 
drinking purposes. Holland described the scene : 

Sixteen barrels of cider 
Ripening all in a row! 
Open the vent chambers wider! 
See the froth, drifted like snow, 
Blown by the tempest below. 

The abolition of these cider mills, and the consequent passing 
of the cider drinking habit, has greatly sweetened farm life, as 
the drinkers of hard cider were always cross and quarrelsome. 
With the importation of molasses, which commenced about the 
time of King Philip's War, distilleries were set up and the manu- 
facture of New England rum commenced. It was made from 
molasses brought from the West Indies and was sold very 
cheap. At one time it retailed here for two shillings, or 33 cents 
a gallon. Later a lively shipping interest was built up and much 
New England rum was shipped to Africa, where it brought a 
much higher price, and the ship returned with a much more 
valuable cargo than it took out, namely : — negro slaves. This 
was the beginning of African slavery in America. The slaves 
were first kept in New England, but as they could not be 
profitably employed here they drifted southward. New England 
is in no wise guiltless of the sin of slavery. An institution 
which is generally thought of as belonging exclusively to the 
South. Slaves once worked on Dover farms. References to 
the ownership of slaves are found in the wills of John Draper, 
who lived on Farm Street, also in the will of Jonathan Battelle, 
who owned the M. W. Comiskey farm at the corner of Main 
and Haven Streets. 

Although large quantities of cider and liquor were consumed 
the settlers were a law-abiding people and must never be thought 
of as a set of drunkards. The drink habit was universal and 
so had no injurious effect on a man's standing in the community. 

59 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Flip, a century ago, was an almost universal drink. It was made 
of beer or cider, sweetened with sugar, with a dash of New 
England rum. It was mixed in a flip mug and stirred with a red 
hot iron, called a loggerhead, which made the mixture boil and 
foam. The hot iron is said to have imparted a bitter taste. 
Drinks were always taken hot, and generally spiced and sweet- 
ened, there was hot flip, hot toddy and hot punch. I have one 
of the old flip bowls and the old flip iron which was used for 
many years in the Williams tavern. It was kept heated in the 
fire-place, and shows the signs of having been many times re- 
paired by the village blacksmith. I also have my grandfather's 
two-quart runlet with his initials, D. S., (Draper Smith), in 
which he carried New England rum, when on the road team- 
ing for himself, or working for the United States Government 
in the War of 1812. I keep these things as illustrating the 
progress that has been made in the life and habits of the people 
during the last century. I see in them the fulfillment of God's 
law, that of evolution, rather than that of revolution. While 
statistics may be given that are appalling, yet when we consider 
the progress that has been made in the daily life of the people 
of this town during the last century, we may have some degree 
of satisfaction. The conditions that exist in Mr. Lord's Parish, 
or in Mr. Vrooman's Parish today, are entirely different from 
those that existed here at the time of the settlement of the last 
town minister, in 1812, when outside of his individual Congre- 
gational Church, there was no organization in town, beside the 
schools, to promote religion, temperance, education or any other 
good work. We are glad to know how well he met the duties 
and responsibilities of his time. Sprague, in his Annals of the 
American Pulpit, says of the Rev. Dr. Sanger : " Beside his 
appropriate duties as a clergyman, he did much for the promo- 
tion of temperance and in aid of the general cause of social 
improvement." The Rev. Dr. Edward E. Hale, a personal 
friend of Dr. Sanger's, in his installation sermon, preached here 
in 1904, says : " I might add to what is said of Dr. Sanger in the 
History of Dover. ' that he labored for the welfare of the Com- 
monwealth, for he was a valued adviser to the State and all 
who served her.' " 

In many ways there has been an improvement in the male help 
employed on Dover farms. For years after the organization of 
this parish, degenerate Indians were numerous on the Indian 
farm at South Natick, who worked for farmers in building 
walls ; stoning wells and like work. With the money thus ob- 

60 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

tained they bought rum and led a rough and boisterous life. 
They harbored low associates and were a detriment to the morals 
of the community. Although their reservation was sold by a 
resolve of the General Court in 1828, yet they continued to live 
in the vicinity for many years afterwards. In 1861 there were 
twelve of the tribe of Natick Indians still living in Massa- 
chusetts. The following description of Massachusetts Indians 
tallies very closely with what I have heard old residents of Dover 
say of them. The wretched squaws, wrinkled, dirty, sore-eyed 
from the smoke in their miserable huts, toiled on patiently, 
ceaselessly making a great variety of wooden utensils which 
they bartered with the whites for milk and vegetables and rum. 
And if these poor creatures obtained in their bartering too much 
bread and milk, and too little rum and tobacco, they were beaten 
as no white man would beat the meanest dog. 

A century ago, when the able-bodied men of the town gathered 
on yonder green and took part in the annual muster, probably 
every man was a patron of the village bar. 

At public auctions liquor was freely given because it induced 
high bidding. There was not a house, barn, or meeting-house 
raised without liquor. When my grandfather bought, in 1812, 
the house in which I was born, and moved it across lots from 
the farm of George Battelle, to where it now stands on Smith 
Street, the tavern keeper was employed for two days to mix 
toddy for the men who were engaged in the work. At funerals 
liquors of a variety of kinds were provided. The body was 
placed in the front hall. Friends, on their arrival, went in to 
view the remains and then passed into the next room to help 
themselves to the liquor there provided. In the burial of paupers 
liquor was furnished at the town's expense. 

Public executions were made days of merry-making and deep 
drinking ; punch, flip and other liquors were drunk in large 
quantities. I remember hearing Jabez Baker of Dover describe 
a public execution which he attended at Dedham. People came 
from far and near. The roadway for several miles was lined 
with carriages. All witnessed the execution, and then the multi- 
tude stayed its thirst at the Dedham taverns. Mrs. Caryl, the 
wife of the minister of the Springfield parish, had her set of 
beautiful wine glasses and decanters from which she dispensed 
hospitality as well as her husband. Seventy-five years ago the 
taking of snuff was a very common practice among the women 
of the town. In every home there was found the ornamental 
snuff box, which was in daily use and always carried to church 

61 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

on Sunday. I remember seeing some of the grandmothers of 
present Dover families smoking their clay pipes in the chimney 
corner, which they seemed to enjoy as much as any man. 

At the ordination of Mr. Ralph Sanger, as the town minister 
in 1812, a vast concourse of people were present. The council 
and their friends, after the public exercises, were entertained 
at the Williams Tavern. My gradmother, who was then twelve 
years of age, used to tell of a party of ladies and gentlemen from 
Roxbury, who ordered an abundance of wine with their dinner. 
They were much chagrined, however, when they were not 
allowed to pay for it, for everything was freely given on that 
occasion. This was the civilization under which our fathers lived 
a century ago. But the night is always the darkest before the 
dawn. With the incoming of the nineteenth century began a 
temperance reform which was far-reaching in its results. Pre- 
vious to this time liquor was almost universally used. The first 
temperance society in the United States, and perhaps in the 
world, is said to have been formed in Litchfield, Conn., in 1789, 
when two hundred farmers simply pledged themselves not to 
use liquor in carrying on their farm work. A little later, minis- 
ters in various places, who at that time exerted a mighty influ- 
ence on the community, became temperance advocates, and 
happily the minister of this town was enrolled in the number. 
In 1813 the Massachusetts Temperance Society was organized. 
It was a temperance organization but not a total abstinence 
society. Its members did not oppose the use of wine, cider, or 
malt liquors ; they only pledged themselves not to use " ardent 
spirits," as a beverage, nor provide it as an article of refresh- 
ment, or give it to any person in their employ. 

Even the strictest church covenant did not forbid the use of 
liquor. In 1683 the Dedham Church added to its covenant a 
paragraph relating to the particular sins of the times, in which 
it mentions mis-spending of time and excessive drinking. In the 
organization in 1736 of the South Church in Dedham, now Nor- 
wood, its members, among other things, did covenant with the 
Lord not to engage in " excessive drinking." Even in the 
Methodist Church, which today stands so nobly for the cause 
of temperance, the General Conference as late as 1811 refused 
to accept a resolution " that no stationed or local preacher should 
retail spirituous or malt liquor without forfeiting his ministerial 
charter." And the Mendon Association of Congregational Min- 
isters, of which the Rev. Benjamin Caryl and Dr. Sanger were 
members, used intoxicating liquors at all its regular meetings 

62 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

until 1826. As late as 1870 Joseph Larrabee, a deacon in the 
First Parish Church and the founder of the Larrabee fund, 
who up to the time of his death in 1872 was the best representa- 
tive of the old-time hospitality, offered some rum to Mrs. Locke, 
the wife of the minister, when making with her husband a 
parish call. In Mr. Larrabee's day it would have been regarded 
as a lack of hospitality if the guest had not been treated to 
sling, flip or toddy. The universal custom of giving hired men 
at least a half a pint of rum a day, began to be abolished by some 
in this town soon after the organization of the first temperance 
society in 1813. In lieu of the rum the men were paid a higher 
wage. The Rev. Dr. Sanger was one of the first to refuse to 
give liquor to those whom he employed. Later the custom was 
abolished by Hiram W. Jones, a carpenter who had quite a 
force of men in his employ. While building the barn now owned 
by Irving Colburn, on Farm Street, he took a decided stand and 
refused to give any more liquor to his men. On that spot he 
settled the question, once and for all, with his men. Now the 
employers of labor in the metropolitan districts insist on having 
temperate workers. Upon railroads, in factories, stores and of- 
fices, only clear heads are tolerated, and the intemperate person 
soon finds his place taken by a sober one. Employers of labor 
are today doing the effective temperance work in the land. 

The Washingtonian Temperance Society was formed in 1840. 
It had for its object the reformation of hard drinkers. John B. 
Gough was one of its first great converts. And from that time 
on, through many years, the most prominent temperance lec- 
turers in New England, from Mr. Gough down through an 
eminent line of public speakers, including the Rev. Warren H. 
Cudworth, Elias Nason, Edwin Thompson, and Mayor Johnson, 
have here aroused the conscience of the people and educated 
them in the cause of temperance. There was a Washingtonian 
Society here sixty-four years ago which held its meetings in the 
Baptist Chapel at Dover Mills, and while there is no existing 
record of its officers, there 'are those still living who were mem- 
bers and recall its efficient work. 

The first Total Abstinence Society was formed in Massachu- 
setts in 1835, a corporation of which your late President, Mr. 
J. W. Higgins, had the honor of being the secretary, a society 
which has commanded the support of many of Dover's best 
citizens. As the temperance sentiment grew County Temper- 
ance Unions were formed, one being organized in Norfolk 
County May 3, 1870, of which the Rev. William M. Thayer of 

63 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Franklin was the President. Mrs. Thayer — the helpmate and 
earnest supporter of her husband in all his religious, educational 
and philanthropic work — is a native of Dover and is still re- 
membered and esteemed by the older residents. This union held 
quarterly meetings at first which met in rotation in the different 
towns of the County, and for many years the meetings were 
very largely attended. From its start the Norfolk County 
Temperance Union has had no stauncher friend than your 
oldest citizen, Dea. Asa Talbot. He stands in my mind as the 
first and strongest temperance advocate in Dover during my 
boyhood days. 

The Order of the Sons of Temperance, organized in 1842, 
and an offspring of the Washingtonian movement, had a num- 
erous membership here and did much good work through a 
careful study of temperance questions. Like its parent, it was 
based upon " moral suasion." This was the last organization 
in town to hold meetings in the hall of the old tavern. It held 
its sessions later in the vestry of the First Parish Church. 

The first temperance organization in the country for juveniles 
was formed in 1839 and was called the " Cold Water Army." 
Its members marched in procession, with banners and badges 
and had a picnic in connection with each celebration. It was 
powerful in Massachusetts previous to 1850 and gave the tem- 
perance movement a strong start. At the open-air meetings of 
the " Cold Water Army " a luncheon was enjoyed and the 
people afterwards listened to temperance addresses, while the 
children sang cold water songs. I recall such a celebration 
which occurred when I was a boy. It was held in the beautiful 
pine grove, on Centre Street, which then covered the present 
grounds of the Dover Historical Society. This grove was called 
" Celebration Woods," and was later cut off. These picnics 
made a lasting impression on the minds of the children of that 
time and helped to fix in them habits of temperance. It has 
been thought by some that much good might be accomplished 
by a renewal of the " Cold Water Army." Another temper- 
ance organization for juveniles, called the " Band of Hope," was 
organized in England in 1847. The movement spread through- 
out all English-speaking countries and is still very popular in 
England. In Dover a band was formed in 1859 through the 
efforts of the Rev. Edward Barker, himself an Englishman, 
which held meetings in the Centre School House. It was active 
for several years and pledged its members as follows : " I hereby 
solemnly pledge myself to abstain from the use of all intoxicat- 

64 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

ing drinks including wine, beer and cider as a beverage; from 
the use of tobacco in every form and from all profanity." An 
organization known as the Order of Good Templars was formed 
in this county in 1852, and had a large membership. A lodge 
was organized in Dover in 1869, which held meetings in the 
Baptist Chapel. It was a secret society with a pass word, grip, 
etc. It admitted both old and young and for several years had 
a numerous membership in Dover. Its charter was finally sur- 
rendered in 1872. 

In the sixties there was a town agency in Dover which sold 
liquor to the residents. A register was kept in which the name 
of the purchaser, the kind and amount of liquor sold was re- 
corded. This agency did a flourishing liquor business. As it 
was not carried on in accordance with the spirit of the law it 
was a detriment to the town and there was great rejoicing when 
it was finally closed. 

There never was more activity in the temperance cause in this 
town than in 1867 when a large number of influential persons 
throughout the Commonwealth organized what was called Per- 
sonal Liberty Leagues. For brevity its adherents were called 
P. L. L's. The avowed purpose of this organization was to elect 
a legislature that would repeal the prohibition law. There were 
many members of this League here who entered into the cam- 
paign with much earnestness. To offset the influence of the 
League much active temperance work was done, including a 
series of temperance lectures in which prominent temperance 
advocates took part. Dover cast her vote for a representation 
to uphold the law, by a good majority. Through the means 
of literature the work has been advanced in Massachusetts since 
1878 by the issue of the Temperance Cause, a periodical which 
has circulated in town although its list of subscribers has never 
been large. 

In 1861 the Civil War broke out and for four years demanded 
the attention and interest of every citizen. How well this de- 
mand was met is illustrated by the remarkable record of the 
patriotism of this town which was far in excess of all demands. 
During this time nothing was done to promote the cause of 
temperance except, perchance, an occasional lecture. About 
1870 the Rev. Thomas S. Norton, that indefatigable temperance 
worker, commenced a series of meetings in Noanet Hall at 
Charles River Village, and in the several schoolhouses of the 
town in which the children took a prominent part in temperance 
songs, dialogues and declamations. At these meetings a tem- 

65 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

perance pledge was circulated and received many signers. In the 
public schools temperance pledges have been circulated occasion- 
ally for more than fifty years and have received, with the per- 
mission of parents, a goodly number of signatures. In 1871 the 
Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society offered prizes to the 
pupils in the public schools, for the best essay upon the subject, 
" The evils of intemperance and its remedy." In this contest 
some of the pupils in Dover schools not only won prizes, but re- 
ceived honorable mention from the officers of the Society for the 
excellence of their essays. 

In accordance with the requirements of public statutes scien- 
tific temperance instruction was introduced into the schools in 
1884. This instruction has been faithfully carried out although 
the attending results have not been all that was hoped for the 
enterprise by its advocates. There has been a great improve- 
ment in the text books used in the public schools. When I was 
a boy at the West school we used to solve problems in getting 
the proportion that a man and his wife would individually drink 
in emptying a keg of beer, and earlier young pupils were actually 
required to give the sum of two glasses of ale, three glasses of 
toddy and seven dippers of gin, the answer being, of course, 
twelve. Laws have been enacted in Massachusetts from time 
to time to promote the cause of temperance. The first restrictive 
liquor law was enacted in 1838, which prohibited the sale of 
ardent spirits in less quantities than fifteen gallons, to be deliv- 
ered and carried away, all at one time, and at that date this was 
advanced temperance legislation. 

There has always been an honest difference of opinion regard- 
ing the advisability of sustaining a temperance political party. 
In 1869 those who looked upon prohibition as a great national 
issue organized the Third or Prohibition Party. This party 
had a very rapid growth for about fifteen years and at one time 
polled more than 250,000 votes. The party had an organization 
here, and in the days of its greatest strength, in 1889, polled a 
considerable percentage of the whole number of votes cast in 
Dover. The party, by death and removals, has gradually de- 
clined until no organization is maintained and its principles have 
but scant support. I think those of you who remember the 
supporters of this cause will agree in this that they were intelli- 
gent citizens, men who lived consecrated and consistent lives. 
In 1882 the Local Option Law went into effect in Dover, as it 
did in other towns of the State, a law which necessitates an 
annual consideration of the subject. In the twenty-seven years 

66 



DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

of its existence the town has steadily voted No and there has 
never been danger of license here. On the first submission of the 
question, seventy-one per cent, of those voting voted No, while 
in 1909 seventy-four per cent, voted that way, showing an in- 
crease in favor of No-license. The work for Constitutional 
Prohibition commenced in Massachusetts in 1883 and continued 
until 1888 when the legislature voted to submit the question to 
the electors of the Commonwealth. On April 22, 1889, the vote 
was taken and illustrates the strong temperance sentiment which 
prevailed in Dover. Of those voting forty-six voted for the 
amendment and forty-one voted against it, showing that a 
majority of those voting favored a constitutional amendment 
forbidding the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors to 
be used as a beverage, while a large majority of the voters of 
the State cast their vote against the amendment. Much pre- 
paratory work was done by the Dover Temperance Union in 
holding public meetings and in the distribution of literature. 
Of all the organizations for promoting the cause of temperance 
which have existed in this town, the Dover Temperance Union 
is the most ideal. It was formed in 1872 by the Rev. Thomas 
S. Norton, a man whose life in this community will ever be a 
pleasant memory. This society has had the longest existence 
of any temperance organization in town and still has, I trust, 
the buoyancy of youth. It seems to unite the popular features of 
all its predecessors and long may it flourish. 

We have now seen in this brief review the sure and lasting 
progress that has been made in the cause of temperance in 
Dover. While much still remains to be done, we may yet take 
courage from the steady gain that has been made, and say, with 
Whittier : 

Oh, sometimes gleams upon our sight, 
Through present wrong the eternal right, 
And step by step, since time began, 
We see the steady gain of man. 



67 



APPENDIX TO MR. STIMSON'S ADDRESS. 
Harvard College Library. 

Smith,* Frank. The founders of the First Parish, Dover, 

Mass., with description of houses now standing which were 

built before the Revolution. 10334.12.5 

Smith, Frank. Narrative history. A history of Dover, Mass., 

as precinct, parish, district, town. Dover 1897. 10334.12 
Dover Hist. & Nat. Hist. Soc. Old home day in the town of 

Dover Aug. 19, 1903. Natick. 1903. 10366 (box) 

Jones, Alice Johnston. In Dover on the Charles; a contribu- 
tion to N. E. folk-lore. Newport, R. I. 1906. 15354.70 
Palmer, Stephen. The Glory of the Second Temple, etc. A 

sermon at dedication of new meeting-house in Dover, 1811. 

Dedham. 1811. Tr. 2169 (7) 

Sanger, Ralph. Brief review of 40 yrs. Dedham 1853. 

17313.12 
Sanger, Ralph. Thirty years' ministry. Two sermons. 1842 

B. 1843. 22 1-2 133 

Dover, Mass. Vital records. 16382.29.85 

Smith, Frank. Biog. sketches of residents of Dover (1748- 

1848) who graduated from college. 17313 (box) 

Everett, Mrs. G. D. Dover. 
(Hurd, D. H. Hist, of Norfolk County 1884. pp. 238-256). 

10355.22 
Smith, Frank. The deeds of our fathers. A Memorial Day 

address delivered in the town house, Dover, May 30, 1904. 

(Dover) 1904. 9342 (box) 

Smith, Frank. A geographical and historical catechism of 

Dover. 
Smith, Frank. Col. Daniel Whiting of Dover, Mass. 7337.15 
Smith, Frank. Ralph Sanger. Dover, 1909. 10366 (box) 
Smith, Frank. The Williams Tavern, Dover, Mass. 1908. 

10366 (box) 
Dover, Mass. Blank form for highway surveyors. 
Dover, Mass. Report of the receipts and expenditures of the 

town. 1866, 1870, 1873. Pam. 

Dover, Mass. Annual report, 1873. Pam. 



*Titles are not repeated. The same book may be found in each of 
the libraries named. 

69 



125TH ANNIVERSARY 

Dover, Mass. School Com. Report. 1865-66. Pam. 

Barber, J. W. Historical collections, etc., relating to history 

and antiquity of every town in Mass. Worcester, 1844. 

Reference to Dover, p. 467. (1 paragraph only). 10355.3 

Chickering, Mrs. Lizzie A. Cemetery inscriptions from 

Dover. M. S. Mrs. L. A. Chickering, Dover. 
Flagg, C. A. Guide to Mass. local history. 10331.1.5 

Colburn, Jeremiah. Bibliography of local history of Massa- 
chusetts. 10331.1 
Griffin. Bibliography of American Historical Societies 

Ref. 108.22.5 
Richardson & Morse. Ref. 108.22.3 

McLaughlin & Others. Ref. 108.22.3 

Griffin. Ref. 108.22.3 

Mass. Historical Society Library. 

American Quarterly Register. Vol. 8, Boston, 1836. 
Dedham Historical Register. July, 1898. Vol. IX, pp. 80- 

85. Tilden, W. S. The Legend of Tubwreck Brook. 
Dedham Historical Register. Vol. III. 1892. Smith, C. H. 

Dover Records. Smith, F. Dover in Revolution. 
Dedham Historical Register. Vol. IV. 1893. Smith, C. H. 

Dover Records. 
Dedham Historical Register, Vol. V. 1894. Dover Records. 
Noyes' Address and Palmer's Sermon. 
John Jones' Book of Minutes. 
Haven's Memorial Address, p. 21. 

New England Historical Genealogical. 44, 158 

Dexter's King Philip's War. 
Dedham Historical Register, XL, 149; IX., 37; IV., 11. 

Boston Athenaeum. 

Mann's Annals. 

Town Reports. 

John Lathrop's Discourse, M. Sam'l West. 

Dedham Historical Society. 
Dr. Ames' Journal. (MS.) 

Dover Historical Society. 

Ordination. Mr. Ralph Sanger, 1812. 
Sanger, Ralph. Two Sermons, 1812. 

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DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 

Sanger, Ralph. Funeral Sermon, Capt. Lewis Smith, 1819. 
Collections Dover Historical Society. General. (MS.) 
Collections Dover Historical Society. (Biographical.) 

(MS.) 
Collections Dover Historical Society. (The Greater Dover.) 

(MS.) 
Dedication Sawin Memorial Building, 1907. 
Dover- Edison Electric Illuminating Company, (1909.) 
Smith, Frank. Biographical Sketches of Dover Soldiers. 

1909. 

Dover Public Library. 

Dover Vital Records, to the year 1850. (1908.) 

Centennial Address. 1875. (MS.) 

Address. Dedication Town Hall. 1880. (MS.) 

Smith, Frank. Address, 150th Anniversary Dover First 

Parish, 1898. (MS.) 
Locke, Rev. C. S. Address 150th Anniversary Dover First 

Parish. Dedham Historical Register, Vol XI. 1900. 
Burrage, George D. Address of Welcome 150th Anniversary 

Dover First Parish. (MS.) 
Brunton, Rev. William. Poem. 150th Anniversary Dover 

First Parish. (MS.) 
Address. What the First Parish had done for Civilization. 

1906. (MS.) 
John Elliot and his difficulty in gaining an Indian settlement. 

1898. (MS.) 
Hale, Edward E. Sermon preached at installation of Rev. 

Robert Collyer Douthit. 1904. (MS.) 



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ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following publications relating to the history of Dover 
have been issued : 

History of Dover, cloth, 354 pages, 2 maps, 20 illustrations. 
Price, $1.80, postpaid. Address, Town Clerk, Dover, Massa- 
chusetts. 

The Founders of the First Parish, cloth, 8 vo., 1 map. 
Illustrated with pictures of all the houses now standing (12) 
which were built before the Revolution. Price, $1.00 postpaid. 
Address, Clerk, First Parish Church, Dover, Massachusetts. 

Dover's First Old Home Day, (1903), paper, 55 pages. 
Price, 25 cents, postpaid. 

Proceedings, Dedication Sawin Memorial Building, (1907), 
paper, 3 illustrations, 40 pages. Price, 25 cents, postpaid. 

Proceedings, 125th Anniversary of the Incorporation of 
Dover, (1909), cloth, 70 pages. Price, 50 cents, postpaid; 
paper, 25 cents, postpaid. Address, Dover Historical Society, 
Dover, Massachusetts. 



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